Singer

Last month, on the night Rihanna won her seventh Grammy award, the 25-year-old singer performed "Stay," a sparsely arranged ballad from her latest album, "Unapologetic. " Often known for bombastic performances of uptempo dance songs, Rihanna instead gambled on raw emotion and vulnerability. The lack of flash, and flesh, was uncharacteristic, but the risk paid off. It was one of the few highlights of an otherwise lackluster night. Unsurprisingly, CBS panned to Chris Brown, dressed all in white, for the first reaction.

Otis R. "Damon" Harris Jr., a Baltimore singer who performed with the Temptations during the 1970s and later used his own diagnosis of prostate cancer to help raise awareness of the disease in African-American men, died Feb. 18 from the disease at Joseph Richey Hospice. The Owings Mills resident was 62. "Singing was his thing. When we were kids, his ambition was to be a singer for the Temptations. We did talent shows where we played Temps records and he'd sing," said Chuck Woodson, a cousin and broadcaster who recently retired as general manager of WFBR-AM 1590.

Baltimore native Otis "Damon" Harris, a one-time member of the legendary Motown act The Temptations, died on Monday after losing a 14-year-long battle to prostate cancer, according to family spokesman Chuck Woodson. Harris was 62. Harris, a resident of Owings Mills, died at the Joseph Richey Hospice in Seton Hill. Woodson said he was in remission until three years ago. The cancer had "gotten pretty bad" by the end of last summer, Woodson said, leaving Harris in the hospital from November until last week, when he was transferred to the hospice.

In 1993, a trio of University of Colorado students released a debut album, "Sister Sweetly," as Big Head Todd and the Monsters. Four Top 10 singles, including "Broken Hearted Savior," pushed album sales passed one million. An unknown at the time named Sheryl Crow opened some of the band's tour dates. That same year, the group made its network television debut on "Late Show with David Letterman. " Frontman Todd Park Mohr remains proud of the band's biggest - and earliest - accomplishments, but he doesn't sugarcoat their affect on him, even 20 years later.

I beg the reader's indulgence as I savor a memory of something that lasted for only about 10 minutes on a summer day 17 years ago - an encounter with a stranger on a bridge in Baltimore County. It was one of those remarkable moments in which something like the secret to happiness appears. That sounds grandiose, but I think you know what I mean about moments like that. They're strange, beautiful epiphanies. Something happens - in the blink of an eye, in an act of kindness, in the sound of music - that answers some question you've had about what it means not only to be human but to be happy about it. It was 1996, and I was having one of my blue days - depressed or overworked or bothered by something.

Toby's Dinner Theatre of Columbia often delivers the unexpected - even in a show called "Hot Nostalgia II," billed as "an original musical review. " It's all that and more, featuring a kaleidoscope of musical moments from the 1920s through the 1980s, performed by a talented cast backed up by pianist Ross Scott Rawlings and a five-piece combo. The near-capacity audience at a recent Sunday matinee ranged across all ages and shared a common goal of extending celebration of the new year.

Last year was a big one for Baltimore alternative/new wave band the Perfects. Three music videos - two from their first album "Many Nights" and one from their new album "A Sudden Victory" - reached No. 1 on MTV's website. For lead singer and songwriter Ric Peters, it was reaffirming. Before the videos became popular, he wasn't sure if the Perfects would even record a second album. "It came about quickly," said Peters. "After the success we had with [the song] "Girls That Dance" and "Many Nights" on MTV, it made sense to repackage songs from that record, put some new material together and introduce the band to a new group of people.

With three contestants left on "The Voice," each took the stage three times in the final night of performances Monday. The true highlight of the evening, however, came before the individual finalists even took the stage. To open the show, the coaches, finalists, past contestants from this season, and even Carson Daly and Christina Millian, came together to sing Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," holding placards of the names and ages of the victims of Friday's Connecticut school shooting.

The Rev. John Paul Buchheister Sr., a retired pastor who had been a United Methodist Church district superintendent, died of cardiac failure Saturday at Oak Crest Village. He was 87 and had lived in Lutherville. Born in Baltimore, he was the son of Harry Buchheister, a chocolate candy and taffy confectioner. He grew up on Wilkens Avenue in Violetville in Southwest Baltimore and was a 1943 graduate of Polytechnic Institute, where he was quarterback of the school's football team. He joined the Navy and was sent to the University of North Carolina, where he took courses at its preflight school.

After seven albums and nearly 15 years of leading the Baltimore alt-country act June Star, lead singer and songwriter Andrew Grimm finally sounds at ease about his band's place in the city's scene. The six-piece has a small but loyal following, and can play its favorite venues regularly. Still, he will forever identify June Star as a group of "underdogs," a label he lists - with a wink - on the band's Facebook page. "Saying we were 'under the radar' was self-deprecating, like a way to cope, but then it became a philosophy," Grimm said.