Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

With the death at 95 of Phil Chess, a giant in the history of rock & roll, soul and blues has gone. With his more animated younger brother Leonard, who died in 1969, the Jewish migrant from Poland founded the Chess label in Chicago. The label produced and released the records of the likes of Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters, Etta James, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, The Moonglows, The Flamingos and Buddy Guy, and in the 1960s by acts like Ramsey Lewis, Fontella Bass, Billy Stewart, and The Dells. The young label in 1951 released what is often called the “first rock & roll record”, Rocket 88 by Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats, another name for Ike Turner’s Kings of Rhythm. In a bit of rock & roll synergy, it was recorded by Sam Philips at his Memphis studio. Many other rock & roll and soul classics were co-produced by the Chess brothers, notably the Chuck Berry output. In the film about Chess records, Cadillac Records, Phil Chess was played by Shiloh Fernandez; in Who Do You Love?, also from 2008, he was portrayed by Jon Abrams.

Bobby Vee, who has died at 73, had an impressive string of hits between 1960 and 1962, before he was even out of his teens, with songs like Run To Him, Rubber Ball, Take Good Care Of My Baby, The Night Has A Thousand Eyes, and More Than I Can Say (later a hit for Leo Sayer). He remained a performer but never had much recording success again. But before he was famous, he had links with two legends in popular music. With his band in Fargo, The Shadows, 15-year-old Vee (then known by his full name, Bobby Velline) took Buddy Holly’s spot on the bill at the Winter Dance concert in Moorhead, Minnesota, the event Holly, Big Bopper and Richie Valens were flying to that ill-fated February 3, 1959. Soon after, Vee had in his touring band a fellow calling himself, with a bizarre turn in spelling, Elston Gunnn. That chap later found fame as Bob Dylan. Dylan always spoke admiringly of Bobby Vee.

At a time when we count how many members of 1960s groups are still alive, it comes as a bit of a surprise these days when a band records its first death. So it is with Joan Marie Johnson, one of the three original Dixie Cups (actually, there were four initially, but one left before they became famous).  The R&B vocal group from New Orleans had hits in 1964/65 with Leiber/Stoller-produced songs like Chapel Of Love, Iko Iko, You Should Have Seen The Way He Looked At Me, and People Say. But in 1966 their recording career suddenly stopped; still, the trio continued touring. Johnson left in 1974 after becoming a Jehovah’s Witness (a year later, The Intruders’ Robert Edwards, who also died this month, did the same). In 2005 all three original members were displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Sisters Barbara and Rosa Hawkins moved to Florida, Johnson to Texas, where she died on October 3 at the age of 72.

Fans of ’60s soul will have heard a lot of Sonny Sanders’ work, either as an arranger, producer, writer or backing singer. As an arranger, Sanders’ most famous songs are the two Jackie Wilson classics, Higher And Higher and The Sweetest Feeling, The Platters’ With This Ring, and Young-Holt Unlimited’s Soulful Strut (or, indeed, Barbara Acklin’s Am I The Same Girl), which he also co-wrote with the Chi-Lites’ Eugene Record. Other co-written songs include Acklin’s Love Makes A Woman (featured on Any Major Soul 1968, and later a hit for Joyce Sims), and Solomon Burke’s If You Need Me, later covered by the Rolling Stones. He worked with virtually any act that recorded on the Brunswick label in the 1960s (from Gene Chandler and Barbara Acklin to the Chi-Lites and Erma Franklin). Before all that, his band The Satintones were the first vocal group to be signed to Motown. Sanders sang backing vocals on early Motown hits such as Marv Johnson’s You Got What It Takes and Barrett Strong’s Money.

On the very same day Sanders died, early-era Motown songwriter and producer Robert Bateman also departed. The two were both members of the above-mentioned Satintones and remained occasional songwriting partners: for example, they co-wrote Solomon Burke’s If You Need Me, mentioned above, with Wilson Picket. Earlier they co-wrote The Marvelletes’ song Angel, which they originally recorded for The Satintones. Bateman’s biggest hit was another Marvellettes’ song: Please Mr Postman, which he co-wrote and then produced with Brian Holland. He also wrote their hit Playboy, as well as songs for acts like Mary Wells, The Miracles and Marv Johnson. He was the recording engineer on tracks like Money (on which Sanders did backing vocals). By 1964 he had left Motown, and worked with acts like Burke, Wilson Picket and The Shangri-La’s.

Three of the biggest crossover hits in country music feature Curly Putnam on their writing credit: Green Green Grass Of Home (a hit for Porter Wagoner in 1965 and again the following year for Tom Jones), Tammy Wynette’s D-I-V-O-R-C-E in 1968, and George Jones’ He Stopped Loving Her Today (the latter two co-written with Bobby Braddock). In addition, he wrote many country chart-toppers. His song Dumb Blonde provided Dolly Parton with a breakthrough hit. Putman kept friends also outside country circles. One of them was Paul McCartney, who stayed at Putman’s farm when he was recording in Nashville in 1974; he wrote the song Junior’s Farm about that. I trust they put a wreath up on Curly’s door…The question Dead or Alive has become rhetorical with the sudden passing of the short-lived group’s frontman Pete Burns at the young age of 56. When Dead or Alive burst on to the scene in early 1985 with the Stock-Aitken-Waterman-produced UK #1 hit You Spin Me Round, Burns’ appearance was quite striking. Later it became extraordinary.  Always a media figure with an eccentric reputation in some way, he augmented his androgynous appearance with liberal cosmetic surgery. A botched lip injection gave him a disfiguring look; he planned to sue the cosmetic surgeon for it. He spent his life-savings on reconstructive surgery, and was declared bankrupt in 2014. Burns died suddenly of cardiac arrest.

German actor, author and singer Manfred Krug was a star in East and West Germany, transcending the intellectual space which he occupied in his artistic endeavours. Born in the West a couple of years before the war, his working-class parents moved to the new German Democratic Republic (or East-Germany) in 1949. In the late ’50s, Krug began his acting career, later also making a name for himself as a singer of jazz, chanson and pop. In the 1976 he fell out with the communist regime over the exiling of protest singer Wolf Biermann. Banned from performing, Krug successfully applied to leave for the West, a difficult process which he detailed in two books written 20 years later. Although already in his 40s, he soon became popular TV and film actor, gaining a fan base on Sesame Street and the crime series Tatort alike. All the while he released a string of albums. The featured track, which is really worth checking out, is from his East-German time, released on single in 1972.

I have already covered the death of Rod Temperton with a tribute mix (which turned out to be less popular than I had hoped for). Still, his passing merits special mention here, for very few who ever danced at parties in the 1980s would have failed to at least tap a toe to songs written by (and often arranged and/or produced) by the funkiest man to ever come out of Grimsby. Tracks like Rock With You, Off The Wall, Thriller, Stomp, Love X Love, Give Me The Night, Yah Mo Be There, Sweet Freedom, Boogie Nights, The Groove Line and so on.

Toni Williams, 77, New Zealand pop singer, on Oct. 1

Steve Byrd, 61, English guitarist, on Oct. 2
Kim Wilde – Love Blonde (1983, on guitar)

Joan Marie Johnson, 72, singer with R&B trio The Dixie Cups, on Oct. 3
Dixie Cups – Chapel Of Love (1964)
Dixie Cups – People Say (1964)

Caroline Crawley, 53, English singer with Shelleyan Orphan, This Mortal Coil, on Oct. 4
Shelleyan Orphan – Little Death (1992)

Rod Temperton, 66, English keyboardist, songwriter, producer, on Oct. 5

Don Ciccone, 70, American singer-songwriter and musician, on Oct. 8
The Critters – Mr. Dieingly Sad (1966, also as writer)
Four Seasons – December ’63 (Oh What A Night) (1975, as member, also on bass)

Angus R. Grant, 49, fiddler with Scottish folk-fusion bands Shooglenifty, Swamptrash, on Oct. 9
Shooglenifty – Johnny Cope (2009)

Guy Nadon, 82, Canadian jazz drummer, on Oct. 9

Bored Nothing (Fergus Miller), 26, Australian indie musician, suicide on Oct. 9
Bored Nothing – Why Were You Dancing With All Those Guys (2014)

Quique Lucca, 103, Puerto Rican salsa musician, on Oct. 9

Sonny Sanders, 77, soul songwriter, arranger, producer, on Oct. 12
Jackie Wilson – (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher And Higher (1967, as arranger)
Barbara Acklin – Am I The Same Girl (1969, as co-writer and arranger)
Sidney Joe Qualls – How Can You Say Goodbye (1974, as arranger)

Robert Bateman, 80, soul songwriter, arranger, producer, on Oct. 12
The Satintones – My Beloved (1960, also with Sony Sanders)
The Marvelettes – Angel (1961, as co-writer, also with Sonny Sanders, and co-producer)
Solomon Burke – If You Need Me (1963, as co-writer, also with Sonny Sanders)

Werner Lämmerhirt, 67, German folk singer-songwriter and guitarist, on Oct. 14
Werner Lämmerhirt – Nine Hundred Miles (1974)

Robert ‘Big Sonny’ Edwards, 74, singer with soul band The Intruders, on Oct. 15
The Intruders – Cowboys To Girls (1968)
The Intruders – (Win Place Or Show ) She’s A Winner (1972)

Bobby Ellis, 84, Jamaican trumpeter, on Oct. 18

Phil Chess, 95, producer and co-founder of Chess Records, on Oct. 19
Gene Ammons – My Foolish Heart (1950, first Chess Records release)
Chuck Berry – Maybellene (1955, as co-producer)
Etta James – At Last (1960, as co-producer)
Howlin’ Wolf – Little Red Rooster (1961, as co-producer)
Ramsey Lewis Trio – The ‘In’ Crowd (1965, as co-producer)

Chris Porter, 34, alt.country musician, in car crash on Oct. 19
Chris Porter – This Red Mountain (2015)

Mitchell Vandenburg, alt.country musician, in car crash on Oct. 19

Achieng Abura, Kenyan jazz-fusion musician, Oct. 20

Mieke Telkamp, 82, Dutch singer, on Oct. 20

Manfred Krug, 79, German actor and singer, on Oct. 21
Manfred Krug – Morgen (1972)

Pete Burns, 57, English singer and songwriter (Dead or Alive), on Oct. 23
Dead Or Alive – You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) (1984)

Go Go Lorenzo, 53, go-go musician, hit by car on Oct. 23
Go Go Lorenzo & The Davis Pinckney Project – You Can Dance (If You Want To) (1986)

Bobby Vee, 73, pop singer, on Oct. 24
Bobby Vee – Take Good Care Of My Baby (1961)
Bobby Vee – More Than I Can Say (1961)

Eddy Christiani, 98, Dutch musician and songwriter, on Oct. 24

John Zacherle, 98, TV presenter and novelty song singer, on Oct. 27
John Zacherle – Dinner With Drac (1958)

Bobby Wellins, 80, Scottish jazz saxophonist, on Oct. 27
Bobby Wellins – You Don’t Know What Love Is (1997)

Ron Grant, 72, TV & film score composer and software developer for composers, on Oct. 28

Paul Demers, 60, Canadian singer-songwriter, on Oct. 29

Curly Putman, 85, country songwriter, on Oct. 30
Curly Putman -Green Green Grass Of Home (1967, also as writer)
Tammy Wynette – D-I-V-O-R-C-E  (1968, as co-writer)
George Jones – He Stopped Loving Her Today (1980, as co-writer)

Bill Kyle, Scottish jazz fusion drummer, on Oct. 30

Jimmy Williams, lead singer of ’70s soul-disco band Double Exposure, on Oct. 31
Double Exposure – Ten Percent (1976)

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Fans of ska, and the ska revival of the late 1970s in Britain and Europe, will have been particularly saddened by the passing at the age of 78 of the king of the genre. Prince Buster, as the Jamaican musician Cecil Campbell called himself, didn’t have huge commercial success in Britain — a Top 20 hit in 1967 with Al Capone is the extent of his residency in the charts — but his influence was felt keenly. When the Two Tone label revived ska, Prince Buster was a revered godfather to the genre. The group Madness named themselves after a Prince Buster song, recorded their debut single The Prince as a tribute to him, and broke through with their sophomore single, a cover of Prince Buster’s One Step Beyond (the b-side of that solitary UK hit, Al Capone).

Before the 1950s there were very few successful women in country music, as explained in A History of Country Music  (get the free eBook of the series). That changed in 1952 with Kitty Wells’ huge hit It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels. Jean Shepard, who has died at 82, was the first female singer to follow in Wells’ slipstream in 1953 when she had a hit with Dear John, her duet with fellow Bakersfielder Ferlin Husky (both breakthrough hits, Wells’ and Shepard’s, were covers, incidentally). At  19 years old, Shepard set a record as youngest female country chart-topper until 14-year-old Tanya Tucker eclipsed her almost two decades later. Along with comedian-singer Minnie Pearl, Shepard joined Wells as one of only three female regular on the Grand Ole Opry in 1955. Last year she became the second person to have been a member of the Opry for 60 consecutive years. Shepard married twice: her first husband, fellow country singer Hawkshaw Hawkins, died in the 1963 plane crash that also killed Patsy Cline and Cowboy Copas. She remained with second husband Benny Birchfield till the end.

In the late 1970s, two soul producers were pioneers in the use of the synthesizer in their productions: Stevie Wonder and Michael Jones, the latter a former keyboard player with funk group BT Express who on his conversion to Islam took the name Kashif. A multi-instrumentalist, Kashif wrote and produced Evelyn “Champagne” King’s hit I’m In Love, produced the more soul-oriented songs on Whitney Houston’s debut LP, You Give Good Love and Thinking About You (he co-wrote the latter and sang on it, too). Along the way, he also released his own albums, scoring a sizable hit in 1987 with Love Changes, his duet with Meli’sa Morgan. Privately, Kashif set up an organization to help kids get into suitable foster care.

A couple of years ago, three of the four original members of The Weavers, the pioneers of the folk scene, were still alive. Then Pete Seeger died in 2014; followed by Ronnie Gilbert last year, and with the death on September 1 of Fred Hellerman at 89, all the Weavers are now gone (Lee Hays died in 1981; latter members Bernie Krause and Frank Hamilton ate still alive). The group’s name was the idea of Hellerman—who had been investigated already in the 1930s for his left-wing activities—after Gerhart Hauptmann’ 1892 play Die Weber (“The Weavers” ) about an uprising of weavers in 1844. After the McCarthyist persecution of Seeger and Hays in the early ‘50s, The Weavers were blacklisted from performing for a few years. In the mid-’50s they made a comeback by the expedient of becoming mostly apolitical (though their continued existence was a political statement itself). The group split in 1964. Hellerman became a full-time producer; among his credits is Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant.

Fred Hellerman died on the first day of September. Another pivotal figure in the folk scene departed in singer-songwriter and radio presenter Oscar Brand, who died on the last day of September at the age of 96. Brand holds the world-record for hosting a radio show uninterrupted for the longest period of time: 70 consecutive years. His Oscar Brand’s Folksong Festival show from New York first aired on 10 December 1945. It was instrumental in introducing successive generations of folk singers to the public, from The Weavers and The Kingston Trio in the 1950s to the likes of Dylan, Baez, Judy Collins, Phil Ochs, Arlo Guthrie and Peter Paul & Mary in the ‘60s. Having been born in Canada, Brand helped break Joni Mitchell and Gordon Lightfoot in the US. Like Hellerman, his engagement in the folk scene and liberal politics earned him the attention of the McCarthyist persecution. Apart from his radio show, he recorded hundreds of songs of great variety, from modern folk and children’s songs to 19^th century ballads. Brand was a co-founder of the Newport Festival. Brand was also involved in the development of Sesame Street; one story claims that Oscar the Grouch was named after him.

Van Morrison’s Moondance is one of my go-to albums, the type of LP which I know I will enjoy in any mood. In September its producer, Lewis Merenstein, died at the age of 81. He also produced Morrison’s Astral Weeks. Having come from jazz production, Merenstein had a flexibility that allowed Morrison to take his time with a song and to improvise. He went on to produce acts as diverse as Cass Elliott, The Main Ingredient, The Association, Miriam Makeba, Spencer Davis Group,  John Cale, Glass Harp, Curtis Mayfield, Charlie Daniels, Gladys Knight & the Pips,  and Phyllis Hyman. He also produced the wonderful Black California by Dorothy Morrison, a highlight on Any Major Road Trip – Stage 3.

South African kwaito musician Mandoza created one of his country’s great dance anthems with 2001’s Nkalakatha (Zulu for “Big Boss”), a track with an instantly recognisable, iconic riff. It’s a song he came to resent, because it came to define him for the rest of his career. Before he made his breakthrough with the song at the age of 23, Mandoza (or Mduduzi Tshabalala, as his mom knew him) spent 18 months in jail for car theft. Just a few days before his death, Mandoza was still performing on stage, by now blind from nasopharyngeal cancer. His end was sad: desperately ill in his Soweto home, he waited three hours for an ambulance to transport him to hospital. Eventually his manager took him; Mandoza died in the car on the way to the clinic.

As a recording artist, country/folk artist John D. Loudermilk had limited success, but as a songwriter, he made his mark. Best known for his songs Indian Reservation and Tobacco Road — both big hits for others — his music was also recorded by the likes of Johnny Cochran, Everly Brothers, George Hamilton IV, Linda Ronstadt, Stonewall Jackson, Johnny Cash, Skeeter Davis, Marianne Faithfull, James Brown and Glen Campbell. He was a cousin to the Louvain Brothers, whose real surname was Loudermilk.

With the death of 1930s male counterpart to Shirley Temple, Bobby Breen, only five of the 61 people pictured on the cover of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band are still alive (according to film historian  Rhett Bartlett): Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Dion and sculptor Larry Bell. Breen’s is the small head wedged between the shoulders of George Harrison and Marlene Dietrich. Canadian-born Breen was something of a sensation as the boy soprano in a series of popular movies, but his thespian stardom was cut short when his voice broke. He remained an entertainer, including a stint of entertaining troops during World War 2 and later recording with Motown. He died at 88 — only three days after his wife of 54 years passed away.

In the mid 1960s, the Record Plant studios changed the way rock music was recorded in studios, from the sterile, fluorescent-lit booths of old to the relaxed hang-out joints. The first record to be cut at a Record Plant studio, in New York, was the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Electric Ladyland. Lots of classics would follow, recorded in the New York studio (Imagine, American Pie, School’s Out, Born To Run and Darkness On The Edge Of Town, Parallel Lines, among many others), in LA (such as the Isley Brothers’ 3+3, Rumours, Piano Man, Eagles’ On The Border, Cheap Trick’s Dream Police, Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique), and in Sausalito (Sly & the Family Stone’s Fresh, Songs in the Key of Life, Maze’s Joy and Pain, Huey Lewis and the News’ Sports, Metallica’s Load). John Lennon recorded at the NYC Record Plant the night he was murdered; legendary drummer Jim Keltner held his legendary star-studded jam sessions there. The creative brain behind the Record Plant was Gary Kellgren, who died in 1977. Some 39 years later, his co-founder and business brain Chris Stone has joined him in the Big Studio in the Sky, aged 81.

Fred Hellerman, 89, folk singer-songwriter, guitarist with The Weavers; producer, on Sept. 1
The Weavers – Rock Island Line (1957)
Arlo Guthrie – The Motorcycle Song (1968, as producer)
Roberta Flack – Business Goes On As Usual (1970, as co-writer)

Kacey Jones, 66, singer-songwriter and humorist, on Sept. 1
Kacey Jones – Donald Trump’s Hair (2009)

Jerry Heller, 75, manager of N.W.A., on Sept. 2

Joe Jeffrey, 80, soul singer, on Sept. 4
Joe Jeffrey Group – My Pledge of Love (1969)

Byron “BJ” Jackson, 52, Go-Go/funk/hip-hop musician, on Sept. 4
Rare Essence – Work The Walls (1992, on lead vocals and bass)

Fred McFarlane, songwriter and producer, on Sept. 5
Jocelyn Brown – Somebody Else’s Guy (1984, as co-producer)

Lewis Merenstein, 81, producer, on Sept. 6
Van Morrison – Caravan (1970, as producer)
Miriam Makeba – Measure The Valley (1970, as producer)

Clifford Curry, 79, R&B singer, on Sept. 7
Clifford Curry – She Shot A Hole In My Soul (1967)

Graham Wiggins, 53, multi-instrumentalist, on Sept. 7

Prince Buster, 78, Jamaican ska musician, on Sept. 8
Prince Buster – Madness (1963)
Prince Buster – One Step Beyond (1965)

Rex Thompson, 47, lead singer and bassist of lo-fi band The Summer Hits, on Sept. 8

Chris Stone, 81, co- owner of the Record Plant studio, on Sept. 10
Yoko Ono – Walking On Thin Ice (1981, as studio owner)

Leonard Haze, 61, drummer of hard rock band Y&T, on Sept. 11
Y&T – Alcohol (1977)

Tavin Pumarejo, 84, Puerto Rican comedian and singer, on Sept. 12

Don Buchla, 79, pioneering synthesizer designer, on Sept. 14

Jerry Corbetta, 68, singer of rock band Sugarloaf, on Sept. 16
Sugarloaf – Green-Eyed Lady (1970)
Peabo Bryson & Roberta Flack – You’re Lookin’ Like Love To Me (1983, as co-writer)

James ‘Jimi’ Macon, guitarist of The Gap Band, on Sept. 16
Gap Band – Outstanding (1983)

Trisco Pearson, singer with soul group Force M.D.’s, on Sept. 16
Force M.D.’s – Tender Love (1985)

Charmian Carr, 73, actress (Liesl in Sound of Music) and singer, on Sept. 17
Sound Of Music – Sixteen Going On Seventeen (1965)

Mandoza, 38, South African kwaito musician, on Sept. 18
Mandoza – Nkalakatha (2000)

Bobby Breen, 88, child-actor and singer, on Sept. 19
Bobby Breen – Rainbow On The River (1936)
Bobby Breen – Better Late Than Never (1964, on Motown)

Micki Marlo, 88, singer and model, on Sept. 20
Micki Marlo – Little By Little (1956)

Ernie Cruz Jr, 56, member of Hawaiian band Ka’au Crater Boys, on Sept. 20

John D. Loudermilk, 82, singer and songwriter, on Sept. 21
John D. Loudermilk – Tobacco Road (1960)
John D. Loudermilk – Road Hog (1962)

DJ Spank Spank, member of acid house group Phuture, on Sept. 21
Phuture – Acid Tracks (1987)

Shawty Lo, 40, rapper and record label founder (DL4), in car crash on Sept. 21

Buckwheat Zydeco, 68, accordionist and bandleader, on Sept. 24
Buckwheat Zydeco Ils Sont Partis Band – Zydeco La Louisianne (1984)
Buckwheat Zydeco – Hey, Good Lookin’ (1990)

Jean Shepard, 82, country singer and songwriter, on Sept. 25
Jean Shepard & Ferlin Husky – A Dear John Letter (1953)
Jean Shepard – Second Fiddle To An Old Guitar (1964)

Kashif (née Michael Jones), 56, soul singer, songwriter and producer, on Sept. 25
B.T. Express –  Do It (Til You’re Satisfied) (1974, on keyboards)
Whitney Houston – Thinking About You (1985, as producer, co-writer and co-singer)
Kashif – Bed You Down (1998)

Hagen Liebing, 55, bassist with German punk group Die Ärzte, on Sept. 25

Joe Clay, 78, rockabilly singer and guitarist, on Sept. 26
Joe Clay – Ducktail (1956)

Karel Růžička, 76, Czech jazz pianist, on Sept. 26

Mike Taylor, singer of British hard rock group Quartz, on Sept. 27
Quartz – Circles (1980, featuring Brian May and Ozzy Osbourne)

Royal Torrence, 82, singer of soul group Little Royal and The Swingmasters, on Sept. 29
Little Royal and The Swingmasters – Razor Blade (1972)

Lecresia Campbell, 53, gospel singer, on Sept. 29

Nora Dean, 72, Jamaican reggae and gospel singer, on Sept. 29
Nora Dean – Barbwire (1970)

Oscar Brand, 96, folk singer-songwriter, author and radio personality, on Sept. 30
Doris Day – A Guy Is A Guy (1954, as writer)
Oscar Brand – Jackson And Kentucky (1964)

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Among the many acts that are considered inventors of punk, Suicide have a good claim, having been among the first to use that term to advertise themselves. The New York duo even had the violence at their gigs to underscore that claim. With the death at 78 of singer Alan Vega of natural causes, half of Suicide is now gone (multi-instrumentalist Martin Rev is still alive at 68). After Suicide, Vega had a varied solo career, working a lot with The Cars’ Ric Ocasek. His last album appeared in 2010, two years before he suffered a stroke. Vega was also an exhibited artist.

On the same day Vega died, we also lost the producer Gary S. Paxton, perhaps remembered best for producing the hits 1960s Monster Mash and The Associations’ Cherish. If an enterprising scriptwriter were to tell Paxton’s lifestory faithfully in a film, he might be unjustly accused of taking literary licence. Born in 1939, Paxton was adopted at the age of 3 and grew up in rural poverty. He was molested when he was 7, and contracted spinal meningitis at 11. He recovered and at 14 joined a band that played country and the new-fangled rock & roll music. Stardom arrived in 1959 when he had a #1 hit with It Was I as Flip in Skip & Flip. They had another hit, Cherry Pie, and then split. Now living in LA, Paxton began producing records. Still only 21 he produced a #1 hit, Alley Oop, for The Hollywood Argyles. More hits followed as Paxton opened five studios and a series of record labels.

Paxton was a skilled, albeit eccentric, self-promoter. Once a radio station refused to play one of the records from his label because it was “too black”. Paxton registered his protest by staging a procession to the radio station building led by 15 cheerleaders and an elephant pulling a Volkswagen car. For his troubles Paxton was arrested – because the elephant was defecating in the street. In 1967 he returned to his country roots, first in Bakersfield and then in Nashville. In the early 1970s, following the suicide of his business partner and his own struggles with addiction, he found God and became a follower of the hippie Jesus movement while recording gospel music.

In 1980 he escaped an assassination attempt, apparently set up by a country musician whom he was producing. Paxton fought off the first hitman, getting part of a finger shot off after slapping away the gun that was pressed between his eyes. He got hold of the gun and shot the killer in the chest. But a second assassin managed to shoot Paxton three times in the back. It took Paxton eight years to recover; he later visited those involved in the hit in prison and forgave them. Shortly after recovering from the shooting, he nearly died of hepatitis C. Death finally claimed Gary S. Paxton at the age of 77 on July 16.

Classical sopranos don’t usually feature in this series, but Marni Nixon is an exception. When Audrey Hepburn sings in My Fair Lady, or Deborah Kerr in The King And I and An Affair To Remember, or Natalie Wood in West Side Story, it is Marni Nixon’s voice you hear. On the latter film’s Tonight, she also sang Rota Moreno’s part. She overdubbed also for Sophia Loren, Margaret O’Brien and Marilyn Monroe (the high notes on Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend). Nixon made her first on-screen appearance as Sister Sophie in The Sound of Music. Married three times, Nixon was the mother of the late singer Andrew Gold.

With the death of Allen Barnes, we have lost a great crossover jazz-soul-funk multi-instrumentalist. Barnes, who was primarily a saxophonist, was drafted by Donald Byrd into his Blackbyrds. On their greatest hit, the joyful Walkin’ In Rhythm, Barnes played the flute solo. He also wrote songs for the band, including 1974’s Summer Love, which featured on Any Major Summer Vol. 5. He recorded with many other artists, including Nina Simone, Prince, Martha Reeves, Bootsy Collins and Sonny Rollins. On stage he backed Gil Scott-Heron on saxophone and synthesizer. He also recorded under his own name and with singer/songwriter John Malone as the unsnappily-named funk band Malone & Barnes and Spontaneous Simplicity.

Last month we lost Chips Moman, who with Dan Penn founded the famous American Sound Studio in Memphis. Among the successful bands they produced were The Box Tops, who are most famous for that perfect slice of pope, The Letter. In July the Box Tops’ drummer Danny Smythe passed away at 67. Smythe drummed on the classic Neon Rainbow album as well as on the 1968 #2 hit Cry Like A Baby. But by the time the latter became a hit Smythe had left the band, having decided to go to college in order to avoid the Vietnam War draft. When the classic line-up of The Box Tops reunited in 1996, Smythe rejoined the bands, staying with it until 2010, when lead singer Alex Chilton died.

On July 7 I posted the Song Swarm of By The Time I Get To Phoenix. Among the 82 versions was one by jazz/funk organist Shirley Scott. Playing guitar on that version was the Antiguan jazz guitarist Roland Prince. Eight days after I posted it, Prince died at the age of 69. Which merits mention here, I think. Prince released a few solo albums, but was more usually a sideman to artists like Scott, James Moody, Roy Haynes, Dr Buzzard’s Savannah Band, and especially Elvin Jones.

On the same day as Roland Prince, drummer and drum manufacturer Johnny C. Craviotto passed away. He started as a drummer in the 1970s for acts like Ry Cooder, Arlo Guthrie, Moby Grape, Neil Young, and Buffy St. Marie. In the 1980s he founded a drum company with Huey Lewis & The News’ drummer Billy Gibson, the Select (later Solid) Drum Company, whose products seem to be particularly popular among country and indie drummers.

Finally, it is necessary to pay tribute to long-time Mad magazine cartoonist (all those covers he did!)  Jack Davis, who has died at 91. His link to music? He also designed LP covers, such as that below for Johnny Cash.

Teddy Rooney, 66, bassist of rock band The Yellow Payges, on July 2
The Yellow Payges – Our Time Is Running Out (1967)

William Hawkins, 76, Canadian folk musician and poet, on July 4
3’s a Crowd – Gnostic Serenade (1968, as songwriter)

Danny Smythe, 67, drummer of The Box Tops, on July 6
The Box Tops – Neon Rainbow (1967)
The Box Tops – Cry Like A Baby (1968)

Rokusuke Ei, 83, Japanese lyricist and author, on July 7
Kyu Sakamoto – Sukiyaki (1963, as co-writer)

Gérard Bourgeois, 80, French composer, on July 8
Françoise Hardy – Rendez-vous d’automne (1966)

Geneviève Castrée aka Woelv aka Ô PAON, 34, Canadian indie musician, on July 9

Steven Young, member of British electronic bands Colourbox and M/A/R/R/S, on July 13
Colourbox – The Moon Is Blue (1985)
M/A/R/R/S – Pump Up The Volume (1987)

Roland Prince, 69, Antiguan jazz guitarist, on July 15
Shirley Scott – Lean On Me (1972, on guitar)

Erik Petersen, 38, founder and leader of folk-punk band Mischief Brew, on July 15
Mischief Brew – Coffee, God, And Cigarettes (2006)

Johnny Craviotto, 68, drummer and drum developer, on July 15
Claudia Lennear – It Ain’t Easy (1973, on drums)

Alan Vega, 78, half of protopunk duo Suicide, on July 16
Suicide – Ghost Rider (1977)
Alan Vega – Goodbye Darling (1983)

Gary S. Paxton, 77, producer and singer-songwriter, on July 16
Skip & Flip – It Was I (1959) (1959, as “Flip”)
Bobby Boris Pickett  & The Crypt-Kickers – Monster Mash (1962, as producer)
The Association – Cherish (1966, as producer)

Bonnie Brown, 77, member of country group The Browns, on July 16
The Browns – The Three Bells (1959)

Claude Williamson, 89, jazz pianist, on July 16
June Christy & Pete Rugolo – Look Out Up There (1954, on piano)

Karina Jensen, singer of Danish pop band Cartoons, announced on July 18
Cartoons – Witch Doctor (1998)

Tamás Somló, 68, singer of Hungarian rock band Omega, on July 19

Lewie Steinberg, 82, first bassist of Booker T. & the M.G.’s (replaced by Donald Dunn), on July 21
Booker T. & the M.G.’s – Green Onions (1962)

Mika Bleu, 34, singer of French grindcore band Miserable Failure, hit by a car on July 22

George Reznik, 86, Canadian jazz pianist, on July 23

Keith Gemmell, 68, British musician with Audience, Stackridge, Pasadena Roof Orchestra), on July 24
Audience – Indian Summer (1971)

Marni Nixon, 86, American singer, on July 24
Marni Dixon & Yulk Brynner – Shall We Dance (1956, The King And I)
Marni Nixon  – I Feel Pretty (1961, West Side Story)

Allan Barnes, 67, jazz/soul saxophonist with The Blackbyrds, on July 26
The Blackbyrds – Walking In Rhythm (1974, on flute)
Malone & Barnes And Spontaneous Simplicity – Workin’ Plan (1977)
J Dilla – Requiem (2012, on flute)

Sandy Pearlman, 72, producer, songwriter and manager, on July 26
Blue Öyster Cult – (Don’t Fear) The Reaper (1976, as co-producer)
The Clash – Tommy Gun (1978, as producer)

Roye Albrighton, 67, guitarist and singer with British rock group Nektar, on July 26
Nektar – Do You Believe In Magic? (1972)

Jack Davis, 91, illustrator, cartoonist with Mad and record cover designer, on July 27

Pat Upton, 75, singer and guitarist of pop band Spiral Starecase, on July 27
Spiral Starecase – More Today Than Yesterday (1969)

Lucille Dumont, 97, Canadian singer, on July 29

Fred Tomlinson, 90, English singer and composer, on July 29
Monty Python – Lumberjack Song (1969, as co-writer)

Penny Lang, 74, Canadian folk-singer, on July 31

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The year 2016 continued to be a bastard in June. But instead of killing off superstars, June took from us some important names.

Imagine what it was like for audiences in mid-1956 to be confronted with the explosion of loud energy that was Elvis’ Hound Dog. Louder and more aggressive than most Rock & Roll hits that came before, to ears used to Perry Como and Bing Crosby it must have sounded positively dystopian. Playing the guitar on Hound Dog, and all those 1950s Elvis hits, was Scotty Moore, who has died at 84. In fact, Elvis’ early Sun records were credited to “Elvis Presley, Scotty & Bill” (Bill being bassist Bill Black, who died in 1965). As such, Moore was instrumental, as it were, in introducing power chords and guitar solos to this new musical form. Rock & Roll Elvis left the building when he went to the army, but Moore continued to play on some Elvis records in the 1960s — including Good Luck Charm, Devil In Disguise, Surrender and Bossa Nova Baby — and appeared on the 1968 Comeback Special.

Moore was not the only artist with an Elvis connection to die in June. Only time prevented me from putting together a special collection of songs written or produced by the great Chips Moman, who has died at 79. His crowning moment might have been the resurrection of Elvis as a serious singer, having produced the sessions that yielded the glorious Suspicious Minds and In The Ghetto at Memphis’ American Sound Studio, which Moman founded with Don Crews. The studio produced many classics produced by Moman, including Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline, BJ Thomas’ Hooked On A Feeling, Merilee Rush’s Angel Of The Morning, and Dusty Springfield’s Dusty In Memphis album. Before he started the studio, Moman worked at Stax, producing hits such as Carla Thomas’ Gee Whiz. Moman was a fine songwriter, too, co-writing hits such as Aretha Franklin’s Do Right Woman Do Right Man, James Carr’s The Dark End Of The Street, BJ Thomas’ (Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song, and Waylon Jennings’ Luckenbach, Texas (which featured on Any American Road Trip 2). On top of all that, Moman was also a session guitarist, playing with acts such as Aretha Franklin, Wilson Picket, Willie Nelson, Townes Van Zandt, Johnny Cash and Guy Clark (who died last month).

Just over a week after Moman passed, Wayne Jackson of the Memphis Horns died. The Memphis Horns were led by Jackson on trumpet and Andrew Love (who died in 2012) on tenor sax. They produced some signature sounds in music, perhaps most famously the intro to Otis Redding’s Try A Little Tenderness. Where there is brass on Stax records, you’d hear The Memphis Horns. Later Jackson and Love decamped to Stax-alumnus Chips Moman’s  American Sound Studio where they played on those career-reviving Elvis records. Later they played at Hi Records, giving Al Green some horn (oh, behave!), including on Let’s Stay Together. They played with King Curtis on his fantastic Live At The Filmore album. They also backed non-soul acts like James Taylor, Tony Joe White, Doobie Brothers, José Feliciano, Jerry Reed, BB King, John Prine, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Joe Cocker, Steve Winwood, Billy Joel, Robert Cray Band, Peter Gabriel and many others. Jackson is getting a bunch of tribute tracks here, but you can also hear him on Aretha Franklin’s I Never Loved A Man and Elvis’ Kentucky Rain, both of which listed in tribute to Moman.

At the next karaoke when somebody does an impression of The Commitments’ version of Mustang Sally, spare a thought for Sir Mack Rice, who wrote and first recorded the song, later a hit for Wilson Picket. Rice had another minor hit with Coal Man, but his success resided in writing for others, especially on the Stax label. The biggest hit of these was Respect Yourself for the Staple Singers.There are few artists left who made their mark in the 1940s and have continued to perform into this decade. With the death at 89 of bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley, we have lost one of those. The importance of Ralph Stanley in bluegrass cannot be overstated. Over seven decades in music, Stanley was known to be a fine man and a willing mentor to many who would become stars in bluegrass and country music. With his brother Carter, the banjo virtuoso was half of the Stanley Brothers and co-leader of The Clinch Mountain Boys. Starting in 1946 they were among the very first acts to play the bluegrass music of the genre’s pioneer, Bill Monroe (who initially resented the Stanleys and his erstwhile collaborators Flatt & Scruggs for “stealing” his music). Carter died in 1966, but Ralph continued on his own, releasing records — many of them gospel — right up to the last one in 2015. In 2002 Stanley won a Grammy for his vocal performance on the old Appalachian song O Death, which featured on the acclaimed O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack.

The legendary Bernie Worrell of the Parliament-Funkadelic collective changed funk with his keyboard grooves, especially once he became only the second person in the world to be given a Moog synthesizer by its inventor, Bob Moog. Armed with his Moog, Worrell had a lasting influenced on dance music, hip hop and new wave through songs like1977’s Flash Light. Worrell also arranged the horn sections for Parliament-Funkadelic. He appeared on the albums released by the outgrowths from the collective, such as Bootsy Collins, and played with Talking Heads during their Stop Making Sense period, as well as with acts like Lou Rawls, The Spinners, Stephanie Mills and Gil Scott-Heron.

Ask anybody who has worked with him, and they’ll tell you that ex-Wings and Spooky Tooth guitarist Henry McCullough was the loveliest of men. He backed Joe Cocker at Woodstock as a member of The Grease Band and played on Spooky Tooth’s 1970 The Last Puff album before joining Paul McCartney’s Wings in 1971, playing on hits such as My Love (that guitar solo is his), Hi Hi Hi, and Live and Let Die. In between he dabbled with Pink Floyd: at the end of Money on The Dark Side Of The Moon, you can hear him speak the words, “I don’t know; I was really drunk at the time”, a reference to a confrontation he had had the night before with his wife. In 2012 McCullough suffered a severe heart attack, leading Ireland’s RTE broadcaster and the BBC to announce his death. The rumours of his demise were greatly exaggerated, but death caught up with the guitarist on June 14.

The Fairport Convention defined British folk, and the group’s guiding member Dave Swarbrick defined fiddle-playing in British folk. Swarbrick introduced the electronic fiddle to the isles’ folk scene, and was much sought-after as a session musician by rock acts. Swarbrick was declared dead (yes, another case of that) by the Daily Telegraph in 1999 — a time before Twitter false alarms and hoaxes — when he was hospitalised with a serious chest infection. Swarbrick’s response: “It’s not the first time I’ve died in Coventry.” The false alarm prompted a fundraising effort which culminated in the musician receiving a double lung transplant in 2004. Which leads me to ask you: have you registered as an organ donor? And if you haven’t, why not?In the same month that Swarbrick left, another important figure in the British folk scene died. Karl Dallas was a Christian socialist (he was named after Marx and, by way of middle name, Engels) and peace campaigner. In the run-up to the illicit invasion of Iraq, Dallas got the better of the lying wear-monger Tony Blair in a televised debate. He was also a journalist who passionately advocated for folk acts such as the Fairground Convention and Steeleye Span, especially during his long association with the Melody Maker.  As a songwriter himself, he had much empathy with those whose music he was writing about. Initially he gave Bob Dylan a very bad review but later became a fan. Arlo Guthrie reportedly wrote parts of Alice’s Restaurant as a guest of Dallas’ in London. Dallas’ best-known songs are The Family Of Man, written in 1955, and Derek Bentley, about a teenager executed for killing a policeman.

Manchester lost a local music legend in promoter Alan Wise who was instrumental in the launch of the Factory club which became the record label of that name, home to Joy Division and New Order, among other acts. He was also a key figure in the city’s Hacienda club, which was famous in the 1980s well beyond Manchester. Three months ago Wise’s 22-year-old daughter died of suicide after health authorities failed to provide the counselling for 18 months. Wise was loudly outspoken about this failure at the time; his criticism found an echo in his obituaries.

Few singers’ career path takes them from the stage to the benches of the judiciary and back, but so it was with Dutch songstress Corry Brokken, one of the Netherlands’ biggest stars in the 1950s and’60s. Brokken won the second-ever Eurovision Song Contest in 1957 with Net Als Toen (Just as it once was). She had unsuccessfully represented the Netherlands the year before, and tried to defend her title the year after her win. She came last, thus holding the distinction of being the only Eurovision contestant to finish top and bottom. She presented the Eurovision in 1976, the year England’s Brotherhood of Men won. Just after that she retired from the music industry and, at the age of 44, began studying law. In the 1980s she became an attorney and then a judge. She made a music comeback in the 1990s.

The Memphis Horns have fallen silent. After the death of Andrew Love (left), Wayne Jackson left us this month to join the great horn section in the sky.

Corry Brokken, 83, Dutch singer, Eurovision Song Contest 1957 winner, on May 30
Corry Brokken – Net Als Toen (1957)

Alan Wise, 63, British music promoter and manager on June 1

Häns’che Weiss, 65, German jazz guitarist and composer, on June 2

Dave Swarbrick, 75, fiddler with British folk band Fairport Convention, on June 3
Fairport Convention – Walk Awhile (1970, also as co-writer)
Dave Swarbrick – Queen’s Jig/Dick’s Maggot (1978)

Muhammad Ali, 74, American boxer and occasional singer, on June 3
Cassius Clay – Stand By Me (1964)
(More Ali-related music)

Bobby Curtola, 73, Canadian pop singer, on June 4
Bobby Curtola – Fortune Teller (1962)

Brian Rading, 69, bassist of Canadian rock group Five Man Electrical Band, on June 8
Five Man Electrical Band – Half Past Midnight (1966)

Habib, 63, Iranian singer-songwriter, on June 10

Christina Grimmie, 22, singer-songwriter, contestant on the The Voice (US), murdered on June 11

Kim Venable, 72, drummer of pop band The Classics IV, on June 12
The Classics IV – Where Did All The Good Times Go (1970)

Chips Moman, 79, songwriter, producer, engineer, guitarist, on June 13
Carla Thomas – Gee Whiz (Look At His Eyes) (1960, as producer)
James Carr – Dark End Of The Street (1967, as co-writer)
Aretha Franklin – I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You) (1967, on guitar)
Elvis Presley – Kentucky Rain (1970, as producer)
Willie Nelson – Always On My Mind (1982, as producer & engineer & on guitar)

Randy Jones, 72, jazz drummer, on June 23

Henry McCullough, 72, Northern Irish guitarist with Spooky Tooth, Wings, on June 14
Joe Cocker – With A Little Help From My Friends (Live at Woodstock) (1969, on guitar)
Wings – My Love (1973, on guitar)
Henry McCullough – Lord Knows (1975)

OJB Jezreel, 49, Nigerian singer and producer, on June 14

Jerome Teasley, 67, soul drummer (Motown), on June 16
Jr Walker & The All Stars – What Does It Take (To Win Your Love) (1969, on drums)

‘Sir’ Charles Thompson, 98, jazz pianist, on June 16
Leo Parker’s Quintette – New Look Swing (1948, on piano)

Tenor Fly, British raga singer, rapper and freestyler, on June 17

Attrell Cordes, 46, singer with soul band P.M. Dawn, on June 17
PM Dawn – Set Adrift On Memory Bliss (1991)

Alejandro Jano Fuentes, 45, American-Mexican singer, murdered on August 18

Bob Williamson, 67, English musician and comedian, on June 19

Chayito Valdez, 71, Mexican-American folk singer and actress, on June 20

Wayne Jackson, 74, legendary trumpeter (The Memphis Horns), on June 21
Otis Redding – I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (1965, on trumpet)
Dusty Springfield – Son Of A Preacher Man (1969, on trumpet)
Al Green – Let’s Stay Together (1972, on trumpet)
Doobie Brothers – Takin’ It To The Streets (1976, on trumpet)
Memphis Horns – Memphis Nights (1977)

Freddy Powers, 84, country singer and songwriter, on June 21
George Jones – I Always Get Lucky With You (1983)
Merle Haggard – The Road To My Heart (2010, as writer)

Karl Dallas, 85, folk songwriter, writer and peace campaigner, on June 21
Colin Wilkie & Shirley Hart – The Family Of Man (1972, as writer)

Steve French, 56, singer with gospel band Kingdom Heirs Quartet, on June 22

Jim Boyd, 60, singer-songwriter, on June 22
Jim Boyd – Father And Farther (1998)

Leo Brennan, 90, Irish musician (father of Enya and Clannad members), on June 22

Ralph Stanley, 89, bluegrass legend, on June 23
Stanley Brothers – Let Me Be Your Friend (1948)
Stanley Brothers & The Clinch Mountain Boys – Memory Of Your Smile (1959)
Ralph Stanley – O Death (2000)
Ralph Stanley – John The Revelator (2011)

Shelley Moore, 84, jazz singer, on June 23
Shelley Moore – The Thrill Is Gone (1962)

Bernie Worrell, 72, keyboard player with Parliament-Funkadelic, on June 24
Parliament – Flashlight (1977)
Bernie Worrell – Woo Together (1978)
Talking Heads – Girlfriend Is Better (1984)

Lor Scoota, 23, rapper, shot dead on June 24

Mike Pedicin, 98, American jazz bandleader, on June 26
Mike Pedicin Quintet – The Large Large House (1956)

Mack Rice, 82, soul songwriter and singer, on June 27
Sir Mack Rice – Mustang Sally (1965)
Staples Singers – Respect Yourself (1972, as co-writer)

Scotty Moore, 84, pioneering Rock & Roll guitarist, on June 28
Elvis Presley – Too Much (1956)
Roy Orbison – Crying (1962, on guitar)
Scotty Moore, DJ Fontana, Keith Richards & The Band – Deuce & A Quarter (1997)

Rob Wasserman, 64, Upright bass player, on June 29

Don Friedman, 81, jazz pianist, on June 30
Don Friedman Trio – So In Love (1962)

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Some musicians wait tables while they try to make it in the business, others make porn movies. The latter was the path Candye Kane took. Born Candace Hogan in 1961, Kane capitalised on her pretty face, large breasts and libertine nature by becoming a star in mostly softcore porn movies with titles like Bra Breakers, Big Melons and Let Me Tell Ya Bout Fat Chicks in the 1980s and ’90s. This allowed her to support a career as a well-respected blues musician who would cross over into other genres. Indeed, she was signed by CBS as a country singer — and quickly dropped when the label learnt about her other career. As a singer she collaborated with acts as diverse as Black Flag, Los Lobos and Dwight Yoakam. She was also a philanthropist and activist in areas such as Down’s syndrome and gay rights. She died from pancreatic cancer, aged only 54.

The country Outlaws are falling one by one. Last month it was Merle Haggard, this month it’s Guy Clark. Clark’s biggest successes were as a songwriter of hits for others, most notably LA Freeway and Desperados Waiting for a Train for Jerry Jeff Walker (and the latter again for Outlaw supergroup The Highwaymen). Clark was very close to Townes van Zandt and Steve Earle; the three recorded the lovely Together At The Bluebird Café in 1995 — it was a fundraising event organised by Clark’s beloved wife Susanna for an inter-faith dental clinic for the poor. One of the tracks from that collection features here. Another track, the title track from his final album in 2013, My Favorite Picture Of You, is about Susanna, who died in 2012 after 40 years of marriage. He held the photo of Susanna about which he sang on the CD cover — it was taken when Susanna was very angry at another one of van Zandt’s alcohol-fuelled escapades at the Clarks’ home.

Perhaps more than any other genre, funk is driven by the bass. With the death at 75 of Marshall “Rock” Jones, one of the great bass players has joined the Great Disco in the Sky. Jones was a founding member of the Ohio Players, and of the group that preceded them, the Ohio Untouchables, of whom the bass player was the last surviving member. In the Ohio Players, Jones’ trademark was the white turban, the headgear he wore long after the band’s demise in 2002.

Why would a French actress who never released a record nor had a history of appearing in musicals feature here? Well, Madeleine Lebeau was seen singing in one of the great music interludes in film history: in Casablanca she played the woman jilted by Rick Blaine who then ostentatiously flirts with German soldiers, but recovers her French nationalism during the Marseillaise vs Wacht am Rhein sing-off (as the camera focuses on her tear-filled eyes, her impassioned voice is amplified). Lebeau, who died at 94, was the last surviving credited actors on possibly the greatest film of the 1940s.Before the Beastie Boys were a pioneering hip hop trio, they were an average punk quartet comprising Adam Horwitz on bass and Mike Diamond on lead vocals, as well as drummer Kate Schellenbach (later of Luscious Jackson) and guitarist John Berry, who was replaced in 1982 by Adam Horwitz. John Berry died this month at the age of 52. His work with the Beastie Boys is preserved on the tracks that appeared on the group’s debut EP, the eight-track Polly Wog Stew from 1982. That EP is out of print, but the songs were re-released along with other early Beastie Boys work in 1994 as Some Old Bullshit. The band started in 1978 as The Young Aborigines. It was Berry who came up with the name The Beastie Boys.

Just as I revived the Any Major Flute series, jazz-rock flautist Jeremy Steig died — as it happens before I could re-post Vol. 3, on which he featured; though it is his flute that scores the Beastie Boys’ Sure Shot on Any Major Flute Volume 2.  Steig released close to 30 LPS, solo and as collaborations, and played as a sideman on the albums of many others, including Richie Havens, Nat Adderley, Hank Crawford, Art Farmer, Idris Muhammad, Lalo Schiffrin, Johnny Winter, Art Garfunkel, and Yoko Ono. Steig, who had retired to Japan with his Japanese wife, actually died on April 13, but his death was announced only in May.

The German new wave band Trio is now solo. After the death of Gert ‘Kralle’ Krawinkel in 2014, drummer Peter Behrens is now gone, leaving only singer Stephan Remmler. Trio, who had a massive international hit with Da Da  Da in 1982, broke up in 1986. Behrens, who before Trio played for Krautrock band Silberbart and trained as a clown, tried his hand at a solo career, without much success — though he did sing official song for the European Football Championship 1988. He acted in a few movies and when he was not being an artist he did social work.

Don Draper did not, after all, dream up the famous Coca-Cola hilltop commercial while meditating in a hippie commune. The man who did, McCann-Erickson advertising executive Bill Backer had that idea during a long forced layover in Shannon Airport in Ireland. It is perhaps the most famous commercial featuring original music (sort of; the melody had already been used on a record; I told the story in The Originals Vol.  36), which justifies Backer’s inclusion here. Backer also originated the slogans “Things go better with Coke” and “Coke is the real thing”, as well as the term “Miller Time” to indicate the hour at which diluted urine ought to be consumed.

Jeremy Steig, 73, jazz-rock flautist, on April 13 (announced in May)
Richie Havens – Indian Rope Man (1967, on flute)
Jeremy Steig – Up Tempo Thing (1972)

Doug Raney, 59, jazz guitarist, on May 1
Jimmy Raney & Doug Raney – Have You Met Miss Jones (1979)

Madeleine Lebeau, 92, French actress, on May 1
Casablanca – Medley: Die Wacht Am Rhein & La Marseillaise (1942)

Paul Dowell, 84, singer of the Temperance Seven and actor, on May 2
The Temperance Seven – You’re Driving Me Crazy (1961)

Kristian Ealey, 38, English singer (Tramp Attack; Edgar Jones & the Joneses) and TV actor, on May 3

Reggie Torian, 65, lead singer of The Impressions (1973-83), on May 4
The Impressions – Sooner Or Later (1975)

Olle Ljungström, 54, singer and guitarist with Swedish rock band Reeperbahn, on May 4

Isao Tomita, 84, Japanese synthesizer pioneer, on May 5

Candye Kane, 54, blues singer-songwriter and porn actress, on May 6
Candye Kane – All You Can Eat (And You Can Eat It All Night Long)

Paul Brown, jazz bassist and teacher, on May 6

Rickey Smith, 36, singer and American Idol contestant (Season 2), in traffic collision on May 6

John Stabb, 54, singer of hardcore punk brand Government Issue, on May 7

Joe Temperley, 86, Scottish saxophonist, on May 11
Tony Crombie and his Orchestra ‎– Stop It (1954, on baritone sax)

Peter Behrens, 68, drummer of German New Wave group Trio, on May 11
Trio – Halt mich fest, ich werd’ verrückt (1981)
Peter Behrens – Dep De Dö Dep (1990)

Julius La Rosa, 86, pop singer and actor, on May 12
Julius La Rosa – Anywhere I Wander (1953)

Tony Gable, jazz-fusion percussionist, on May 12
Tony Gable & 206 – The Bus Song

Buster Cooper, 87, American jazz trombonist, on May 13

Bill Backer, 89, advertising executive and songwriter, on May 13
Hilltop – I’d Like To Buy The World A Coke (1971)

Tony Barrow, 80, press officer of The Beatles (initiated the term “Fab Four”), on May 14

Paul Smoker, 75, American jazz trumpeter, on May 14

Cauby Peixoto, 85, Brazilian singer, on May 15
Cauby Peixoto – Conceição (1956)

Emilio Navaira, 53, country and Tejano singer, on May 16
Emilio Navaira – Ella Es Asi

Fredrik Norén, 75, Swedish jazz drummer, on May 16

Guy Clark, 74, folk and country singer-songwriter, on May  17
Guy Clark – Desperados Waiting For A Train (1975)
Steve Earle, Townes Van Zandt & Guy Clark – Randall Knife (1995)
Guy Clark – My Favorite Picture Of You (2013)

Marlene Marder, 61, guitarist of Swiss punk rock group Kleenex/ LiLiPUT, on May 17
Kleenex – Ain’t You (1978)

John Berry, 52, guitarist and original member of the Beastie Boys, on May 19
Beastie Boys – Jimi (1982)

James King, 57, bluegrass musician, on May 19
James King – These Old Pictures (1993)

Nick Menza, 51, German-born drummer of Megadeth, on May 21
Megadeth – Countdown To Extinction (1993, also as co-writer)

Marshall Jones, 75, bassist of funk band Ohio Players, on May 27
Ohio Players – A Little Soul Party (1968)
Ohio Players – Skin Tight (1974)

Mike Barnett, 89, co-founder of vocal group The Lettermen (left 1958), on May 27

Jimmy Borges, 80, Hawaiian vocalist, on May 30

Thomas Fekete, 27, guitarist of indie band Surfer Blood, on May 30
Surfer Blood – Swim (2007)

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This year is a real bastard; in my years of doing this monthly round-up I cannot remember a sequence of months in which the Grim Reaper picked off fixtures in my music collection at such a relentless rate. At this point I fear for Stevie Wonder, Kris Kristofferson, Van Morrison, Donald Fagen, Burt Bacharach, Frankie Beverley, Hal Blaine and all four members of ABBA.In the great 1980s battle between Michael Jackson and Prince (who were born just 73 days apart), I was a cheerleader for the latter. Don’t misunderstand, Jackson was immense, and I’ll sooner listen to Off The Wall than to any Prince album (on the other hand, Purple Rain easily trumps Thriller, as I showed HERE). But Prince wrote his own songs (and for others), arranged them, played on them, was a fine dancer and great showman, and he played the guitar so beautifully. And he had something to say. Prince was a genius, and if he had not been so obsessed with hunting down the use of his music on blogs and YouTube, he’d feature heavily on Any Major collections.

April didn’t claim not one but two absolute legends: Prince, but also Merle Haggard, one of the true country giants. Merle was outlaw before Outlaw Country was a thing. In fact, he was a real outlaw in his younger days, and his life of robbery and larceny ended with him locked up at San Quentin prison, near San Francisco. Even in jail, Haggard was a troublemaker — until the day when Johnny Cash played one of concerts there (not his first one there in 1958, as is often written, but one of those he did in 1959 and 1960). Watching Cash — and having had a few other formative experiences before that — Merle decided to go on to the straight and narrow and finally make it in the music business. Which he did. Merle Haggard died of pneumonia on his 79^th birthday. It’s not right that people should die on their birthday.

Controversy followed the gifted Philly soul singer Billy Paul, who had a massive hit in 1972 with Me And Mrs Jones. Against his express wishes, his label, PIR, released as the follow-up the provocative Am I Black Enough For You (Paul wanted the milder Brown Baby as the follow-up). It was indeed the second-best track on the 360 Degrees Of Billy Paul album, but predictably the white pop stations weren’t ready for a black consciousness song by a soul crooner. The episode sabotaged Billy Paul’s career, some first-class releases notwithstanding. More controversy hit the singer in 1975 with the gorgeous Let’s Make A Baby when the Rev Jesse Jackson and his Operation PUSH campaigned for a boycott of the song on grounds of its supposed lewdness (the good reverend seemed to have been unaware by what act babies are made). A year later, Billy Paul’s wonderful cover of Paul McCartney’s Let ’Em In caused some controversy, and also earned effusive praise, for its name-checks of deceased black leaders such as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Elijah Muhammad, Medgar Evers and Louis Armstrong.

On the same day the master guitarist Prince died, one of the men who pioneered rock guitar playing, especially in the blues-rock field that was the domain of the likes of Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck and Duane Allman, passed away. Lonnie Mack’s 1963 instrumentals such as Wham! and Memphis have been acclaimed as being milestones in the development of rock music, particularly the nascent blues-infused rock guitar solo. Mack was also a great soul singer, but when R&B stations discovered that he was white, they stopped playing his records. He returned in the 1970s as a country singer before reverting to blues-rock, recording with the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughan.Congolese soukos singer Papa Wemba, who has died at 66, was one of Africa’s most popular musicians, and a favourite also in the World Music market. He was a star in Africa almost as much for his dandyish sartorial style as he was for his marvellous music. But the life of the man born Jules Shungu Wembadio Kikumba was not universally admirable. In 2003 he was convicted of being part of a network that smuggled immigrants from the Democratic Republic of Congo (née Zaire), and was imprisoned for three months in France. He later said that the experience changed him. It was not his first time in prison. In 1976 Papa Wemba, already a star, was briefly incarcerated on grounds of a suspected relationship with the daughter of a general from dictator Mobutu Sese Seko’s army. Wemba died on stage while playing a concert in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.

Session drummer Dennis Davis is probably best known for having backed David Bowie during the period of Young Americans to Scary Monsters, and after that also on stage. You hear Davis on Bowie classics like Heroes, Golden Years, Ashes To Ashes and Fashion. But my pick of tracks on which Davis drummed is Stevie Wonder’s marvellous Do I Do (one of the last really great Wonder songs). Among other Wonder tracks, he also drummed on Master Blaster. Davis also backed acts like Luther Vandross, Roy Ayers, Zulema, George Benson, Jermaine Jackson, Garland Jeffreys, Smokey Robinson, Webster Lewis and more.

The trumpet of Harrison Calloway has fallen silent. Calloway was the leader of the Muscle Shgoal Horns which can be heard on a huge amount of soul records and other tracks cut at the Muscle Shoals studio, including by acts like Bob Dylan, Jim Capaldi, Paul Simon and Rod Stewart, and also on Elton John’s 1975 performances with John Lennon.  The gloriously named Jack Hammer (real name Earl Burroughs) is most famous for co-writing a song he didn’t write. As a performer and songwriter he had enjoyed some success in the early 1950s, but when he brought his new song Great Balls Of Fire to songwriter Paul Case, the latter didn’t like it. He did, however, like the title and commissioned Otis Blackwell to write a song by that title for a film called Jamboree. In a rare outburst of ethics in the 1950s music industry, Hammer received half of the songwriting credit for coming up with the title for what would become one of the great rock & roll classics. Hammer kept writing and recording, and in the early 1960s moved to Europe where he had a huge hit with his song Kissin’ Twist and earned the title The Twistin’ King, after his 1961 single of that name, for his dance moves.

Emile Ford, who has died at 78, was the first black musician to sell a million copies of a single in Britain with his 1958 hit What Do You Want To Make Those Eyes At Me For. Born on the Caribbean island of St Lucia, he came to Britain in the mid-’50s, more with a view to being a sound engineer than a recording artist. Still, with his Checkmates he scored a few hits. At the same time he developed a backing track system for stage shows, which formed the basis for what would become karaoke.

The rise of Rock ‘n’ Roll depended to a great degree on the rhythm section: the bass and the drum. But drums were expensive and not easy to get because the drumheads were made of animal hides, usually from calves. The advent of synthetic drumheads changed that — and the developer of the first commercially viable synthetic drumheads, Remo Belli, has died at 88.

Mike Gibbons, 71, lead singer of Canadian group Bo Donaldson & the Heywoods, on April 2
Bo Donaldson & the Heywoods – Who Do You Think You Are (1974)

Gato Barbieri, 83, Argentine free jazz saxophonist, on April 2

Bill Henderson, 90, jazz singer and actor, on April 3
Bill Henderson with the Oscar Peterson Trio – At Long Last Love (1963)

Don Francks, 84, Canadian jazz singer and actor, on April 3

Kōji Wada, 42, Japanese singer, on April 3

Carlo Mastrangelo, 78, bass and lead singer with The Belmonts, on April 4
The Belmonts – Come On Little Angel (1963)
Carlo – Fever (1970)

Dorothy Schwartz, 89, singer with The Chordettes (1946-52), on April 4
The Chordettes – Moonlight On The Ganges (1951)

Getatchew Mekurya, 81, Ethiopian jazz saxophonist, on April 4

Leon Haywood, 74, soul singer, on April 5
Leon Haywood – Don’t Push It Don’t Force It (1980)

Merle Haggard, 79, country singer-songwriter, on April 6
Merle Haggard & The Strangers – The Son Of Hickory Holler’s Tramp (1968)
Merle Haggard & The Strangers – If We Never Meet Again (1971)
Merle Haggard & The Strangers – Always Wanting You (1975)
Merle Haggard – My Life’s Been Grand (1986)
Merle Haggard – I Am What I Am (2010)

Dennis Davis, session drummer, on April 6
Roy Ayers Ubiquity – Brother Louie (1973, on drums & percussion)
David Bowie – Breaking Glass (1977, on drums, also as co-writer)
Stevie Wonder – Do I Do (1982, on drums)

Jimmie Van Zant, 59, rock musician, on April 7

Jade Lemons, member of hard rock group Injected, on April 7

Jack Hammer, 90, musician and songwriter, on April 8
The Cadillacs – Peek-A-Boo (1958, as writer)
Jack Hammer – Kissin’ Twist (1962)

Emile Ford, 78, Saint Lucia-born pop singer and sound engineer, on April 11
Emile Ford – Them There Eyes (1960)

Mike Lazo, 83, lead singer of The Tempos, on April 12
The Tempos – See You In September (1959)

Gib Guilbeau, 78, songwriter, singer, guitarist and fiddler, on April 12
The Flying Burrito Brothers – Wind And Rain (1975, also as co-writer)

Robbie Brennan, Irish rock drummer, on April 12
Townes Van Zandt – A Song For (1994, on drums)

Ismael Quintana, 78, Puerto Rican salsa singer and composer, on April 16

Pete Zorn, 65, multi-instrumentalist musician, on April 19
Richard & Linda Thompson – Shoot Out The Lights (1982, on bass)

Richard Lyons, 57, member of experimental rock group Negativland, on April 19

Prince, 57, music genius, on April 21
I Feel For You (1979)
Sometimes It Snows In April (1986)
Starfish And Coffee (1987)
The Most Beautiful Girl In The World (1994)
Reflection (2004)

Lonnie Mack, 74, singer and guitar pioneer, on April 21
Lonnie Mack – Wham! (1963)
Lonnie Mack – Why (1963, released 1968)
Lonnie Mack ‎- Too Rock For Country, Too Country For Rock And Roll (1988)

Bill Sevesi, 92, Tongan-born New Zealand musician, on April 23

Billy Paul, 81, soul singer, on April 24
Billy Paul – Ebony Woman (1970)
Billy Paul – Am I Black Enough For You (1972)
Billy Paul – Let’s Make A Baby (1975)

Papa Wemba, 66, Congolese singer, on April 24
Papa Wemba – Le Voyageur (1992)

Remo Belli, 88, drummer, developer of the synthetic drumhead, on April 25

Wolfgang Rohde, 66, drummer of German rock band Die Toten Hosen, on April 25
Die Toten Hosen – Pushed Again (1998)

Philip Kives, 87, Canadian founder of K-tel records, on April 27

Harrison Calloway, 75, trumpeter and leader of the Muscle Shoals Horns, on April 30
Clarence Carter – Patches (1970)
Muscle Shoals Horns – Open Up Your Heart (1976)

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hn Lennon.

After a little respite in February, the Grim Reaper was very busy in March. Sadly, a full third of the 42 listed deaths were of people under the age of 60.

Everything important has been said of George Martin, who has died at 90. It might merit emphasising that Martin was to The Beatles as a good professor is to the student whom he (or, indeed, she) guides from freshman  to doctorate. At first he was instructive, exercising his authority to have Pete Best dismissed; though The Beatles rightly baulked at his insistence that they should release How Do You Do It, a song they didn’t write, as a single. They did record it (halfheartedly, as we can hear on the featured track), but it instead became a UK #1 for Gerry and the Pacemakers—and was knocked off the top spot by the much bigger Beatles hit, From Me To You. From being the teacher figure Martin grew to be the facilitator and guide in the group’s rapid development from very good pop combo to genius innovators. Without Martin, the story of The Beatles, and that of pop music, might have been quite different.

George Martin will always be associated with The Beatles, of course, but he had his hand in many other pop classics. He produced a string of 1960s hits for the other Liverpudlian legends, Gerry & the Pacemakers and Cilla Black, as well as for Matt Munro and Billy J. Kramer. Later he produced such hits as Wings’ Live And Let Die, America’s Sister Golden Hair, Tin Man and Lonely People, Little River Band’s The Night Owls, Kenny Rogers’ Morning Desire, as well as many 1980s McCartney tracks (Say Say Say, Ebony and Ivory, No More Lonely Nights, Pipes Of Peace, We All Stand Together etc). Others whom he produced included Jeff Beck, Shirley Bassey, Stan Getz, Cleo Laine, Neil Sedaka, Jimmy Webb, Cheap Trick, Billy Preston, Mahavishnu Orchestra, José Carreras, Celine Dion, and Kate Bush. Alas, he was also co-responsible for that mawkish abomination that was Elton John’s Candle In The Wind 1997.

In the early 1990s, before hip hop became dominated by blinging, car-bouncing, Hennessy-quaffing, cap-in-yo-ass-bustin’ gangsta misogyny (at least at its platinum-selling levels), rappers had success talking about actual social issues, carrying the mantle of Gil Scott-Heron. One such group was A Tribe Called Quest, whose “Five Foot Assassin”, Phyfe Dawg, has died at 45 from complications relating to diabetes, which had previously required two kidney transplants.  With acts like De La Soul and the Jungle Brothers, A Tribe Called Quest exercised a profound influence on hip hop artists like Common, The Roots and, when he does have something to say that isn’t mad or self-aggrandising, Kanye West.

You’ll probably know Thunderclap Newman’s 1969 hit Something In The Air, a call for revolution when that ship had already sailed. But do you remember that glorious piano break that kicks in at 2:00 minutes and goes on for close to a minute. That was played by Andy Newman, who has died at 73. It was his nickname and surname that gave the band its name after it was founded as a side project by The Who’s Pete Townshend (who under a pseudonym played bass on that mega hit). Townshend’s game was kindness: he wanted to give Newman and singer-guitarist Speedy Keen a showcase for their talents. Also in the band was Jimmy McCulloch, who went on to join Paul McCartney’s Wings before his death in 1979. Keen died in 2002. Besides the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Thunderclap Newman is the only classic ‘60s rock act I can think of whose official line-up is now all dead.  Thunderclap Newman recorded one album; Newman released a solo album in 1971.

Children of famous people have it easier to get through a door than random hopefuls, but few manage to emulate the success of their famous parent. So it was with Frank Sinatra Jr, who has died suddenly at 72. There is no doubt that Frank Jr had talent, but if you are going to have as Sinatra, you’ll go for Senior, or older sister Nancy, who followed her own musical path. Frank Jr acquired some fame by being a victim of a kidnapping in December 1963 (Frank Sr paid up to have his son released).

Another pioneer of the Outlaw movement in country music — the sub-genre that counted among its heroes the likes of Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Hank Williams Jr, Kris Kristofferson and Tompall Glaser — has fallen in the form of Steve Young, who is probably best known as the writer and original performer of the Eagles hit Seven Bridges Road. He also wrote and first performed the Waylon Jennings hit Lonesome On’ry and Mean and Montgomery In the Rain by Hank Williams Jr.

If you played at the age of 18 with Gene Krupa, you probably had some talent. Jazz trumpeter and later bandleader Joe Cabot made his mark with Krupa in 1939. He went on to play in the orchestras of people like Tommy Dorsey and Artie Shaw, and played with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Gerry Mulligan, Oscar Peterson, Stan Getz and his close friend Harry James. He backed artists such as Bobby Darrin (including on Mack The Knife and Beyond The Sea), Anita O’Day, Tony Bennett, Ruth Brown, Chris Connor and Eartha Kitt. (Alas, I could find no photo of the man.)

Patty Duke is obviously remembered as an actress of some skill who as a teenager won an Oscar for The Miracle Worker and later played identical twins on the TV sitcom named after her (I could never understand how TV execs expected viewers to suspend disbelief when they titled sitcoms after the lead actor, but obviously the ploy worked). What is not widely known is that Duke released four LPs in the mid-1960s, charting in the US with Don’t Just Stand There” (#8) and Say Something Funny (#22). In 1982 Duke was diagnosed as a bipolar depressive, and went on to become an activist around mental health issues — an matter that still needs further activism.

Every suicide is a tragedy; most of them are the result of an illness. Much as people die involuntarily of cancer, some people die involuntarily of mental illness. So, while it is shocking when a famous person, especially a rock legend, “commits” suicide, we should not state our head-shaking disbelief but use that as an occasion to understand the nature of mental illness and suicide, and to raise awareness about it in order to destigmatise it. Apparently Keith Emerson’s suicide was triggered by depression, brought on by health concerns and exacerbated by alcohol. May he be at rest now. In the meantime we remember Emerson as a supremely talented and influential keyboardist, and by all accounts a very nice man. Emerson, Lake & Palmer were hate figures for the prog-rock hating punks, led by the polemic of Johnny Rotten, who’d single out EPL for his spleen-venting. Later Emerson and John Lydon (the erstwhile Rotten) became neighbours in Hollywood — and good friends.

Gayle McCormick, 67, singer of blues-rock band Smith, on March 1
Smith – Baby, It’s You (1969, on lead vocals)

John Thomas, 63, guitarist with Welsh hard rock band Budgie, on March 3
Budgie – I Turned To Stone (1981, also as co-writer)

Brian Gallagher, 52, multi-instrumentalist with Greazy Meal and Prince, on March 3
Enthusiastic invoker of DMCA – Sexy MF (1990, on guitar)

Joey Feek, 40, singer with country duo Joey + Rory, on March 4
Joey + Rory – To Say Goodbye (2008)

Bankroll Fresh, 28, rapper, shot on March 4

Aaron Huffman, 43, bassist with rock band Harvey Danger, on March 6
Harvey Danger – Flagpole Sitta (1997)

Timothy Makaya, 67, Nigerian jazz guitarist, on March 7

Joe Cabot, 94, jazz musician and band leader, on March 7
Bobby Darin – Beyond The Sea (1959, on trumpet)
Chris Connor – Come Rain Or Come Shine (1959, on trumpet)

Bruce Geduldig, 63, experimental synth musician and filmmaker, on March 7

George Martin, 90, English record producer, composer, arranger and engineer, on March 8
Peter Sellers & Sophia Loren – Goodness Gracious Me (1960)
The Beatles – How Do You Do It (1963)
David & Jonathan – Softly Whispering I Love You (1967)
America – Sister Golden Hair (1975)
Ultravox – Hymn (1983)
Hayley Westenra – Beat Of Your Heart (2003)

Ross Hannaford, 65, guitarist of Australian rock band Daddy Cool, on March 8
Daddy Cool – Eagle Rock (1971)

Andrew Loomis, 54, drummer of rock band Dead Moon, on March 8
Dead Moon – Black September (1989)

Naná Vasconcelos, 71, Brazilian jazz percussionist and singer, on March 9
Talking Heads – Perfect World (1985, on water drum)
Naná Vasconcelos – Futebol (2002)

Léon Francioli, 69, Swiss jazz bassist, on March 9

Ray Griff, 75, Canadian country singer and songwriter, on March 9
George Hamilton IV – Canadian Pacific (1969, as writer)

Jon English, 66, English-born Australian singer and actor, on March 9

Keith Emerson, 71, English rock keyboardist (The Nice; Emerson, Lake & Palmer), of suicide on March 10
The Nice – Diary Of An Empty Day (1969)
Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Fanfare For The Common Man (1974)

Gogi Grant, 91, pop and musicals singer, on March 10
Gogi Grant – The Wayward Wind (1956)

Ernestine Anderson, 87, American jazz singer, on March 10
Ernestine Anderson – Welcome To The Club (1959)

Louis Meyers, 60, co-founder of South by Southwest (SXSW) festival, on March 11

Shawn Elliott, 79, singer and actor, on March 11
Shawn Elliott – Shame And Scandal In The Family (1965)

Joe Ascione, 54, jazz drummer, on March 11

Tommy Brown, 84, R&B singer, on March 12
The Griffin Brothers Orchestra feat. Tommy Brown – Tra-La-La (1951)

Conor Walsh, 36, Irish indie pianist and composer, on March 12

Daryl Coley, 60, gospel singer, on March 15
Vanessa Bell Armstrong & Daryl Coley – Comfort Ye My People (1992)

Ryo Fukui, 67, Japanese jazz pianist, on March 15

Frank Sinatra Jr., 72, singer and actor, on March 15
Frank Sinatra Jr. – Shadows On A Foggy Day (1967)

Lee Andrews, 79, doo-wop singer, on March 16
Lee Andrews & The Hearts – Try The Impossible (1958)

Steve Young, 73, country singer–songwriter, on March 17
Steve Young – Seven Bridges Road (1969)

David Egan, 61, Cajun rock musician, on March 18
David Egan – Bourbon In My Cup (2008)

Scabs, 41, drummer with punk outfit Frankenstein Drag Queens from Planet 13, on March 19

Phife Dawg, 45, member of hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest, on March 22
A Tribe Called Quest – Oh My God (1994)

James Jamerson Jr, 58, session bass player, member of funk band Chanson, on March 23
Chanson – Don’t Hold Back (1978)
The Crusaders – Carnival Of The Night (1979, on bass)

Jimmy Riley, 61, Jamaican reggae singer, on March 23
The Sensations – Everyday Is Like A Holiday (1969)

Roger Cicero, 45, German jazz and pop singer, on March 24
Roger Cicero – Schieß mich doch zum Mond (2006)

Peter Andreoli (Anders), 74, doo wop singer, songwriter, producer, on March 24
The Videls – Mr Lonely (1960)
The Ronettes – The Best Part Of Breaking Up (1964, as co-writer)

Joe Skyward, 57, bassist with Sunny Day Real Estate, The Posies, on March 26

Ross Shapiro, singer-guitarist of Indie band The Glands, announced on March 26
The Glands – Livin’ Was Easy (2000)

David Baker, 84, jazz musician, composer and academic, on March 26

Patty Duke, 69, American actress and singer, on March 29
Patty Duke – Don’t Just Stand There (1965)

Andy Newman, 73, pianist of British band Thunderclap Newman, announced on March 30
Thunderclap Newman – Something In The Air (1969)

Larry Payton, drummer of funk group Brass Construction, announced on March 30
Brass Construction – Changin’ (1975)

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After the massacre of last month, the Grim Reaper took it easier in February, though he still managed to claim one legend.

None of the parade of music legends’ deaths this year hit me as hard as that of Maurice White, not even that of David Bowie. You see, White’s music soundtracked many times I have fallen in love: sometimes for a long time, sometimes for a night, once for life. And, of course, I regard Earth, Wind & Fire as only second in my fandom to The Beatles. Of course, White was the driving force behind EWF: founder, co-producer, main songwriter, co-frontman, patriarch, spiritual director and so on. He had a marvellously warm voice which worked as well on ballads (Love’s Holiday, After The Love Has Gone , That’s The Way Of The World) as it did on upbeat tracks (In The Stone, September, Boogie Wonderland).

But he was even more than that: he produced and co-wrote The Emotions’ Best Of My Love, and co-produced Deniece Williams’ gorgeous 1977 #1 Free, and indeed the whole This Is Niecy LP (with EWF producer Charles Stepney, who died before the release of Niecy). Before EWF he was a session drummer, appearing on Fontellas Bass’ Rescue Me, Summertime by Billy Stewart, Betty Everett’s It’s In His Kiss, all of Minnie Riperton’s Come To My Garden LP, including her splendid version of Les Fleurs, as well as tracks by The Impressions, Etta James and other Chess acts. And for several albums he was a third of the Ramsey Lewis Trio, playing on classics such as Wade In The Water and Hold It Right There. A first attempt at running a band, The Salty Peppers, was unsuccessful. The next band was all the more a triumph. And Maurice sported the best receding-hairline afro ever.

The saxophone named Gina, after the nipples of the screen siren Lollobrigida, has fallen silent with the passing of Joey ‘The Lip’ Fagan. Actor Johnny Murphy, who played Joey The Lip in the 1991 film The Commitments, has died at the age of 72. A serious thespian of stage and screen, Murphy was the seasoned veteran in a cast of mostly novices. He was a generous actor, letting his co-stars shine in their scenes with him — his opening exchange with Jimmy “The Bollocks” Rabbitte is priceless — but by his presence alone he stole every scene. Irish president Bertie Higgins turned up for Murphy’s funeral.

For a brief while in the 1980s Canadian-born singer Vanity enjoyed some fame as Prince’s latest hypersexy girlfriend/protegé, fronting the Vanity 6 project. Born of mixed-race background as Denise Katrina Matthews, she first had a career in modelling before meeting Prince in 1980. He gave Denise her new name and had her front Vanity 6 — the number apparently represented the amount of breasts in the all-girl trio. They had a few hits, then broke up. Vanity had a couple more solo hits, posed twice in Playboy in the ‘80s (and on the cover of Cameo’s 1982 album Alligator Woman), and appeared in a few films, most notably 1988’s Action Jackson. More darkly, she also entertained a crack addiction. Following a near-fatal overdose in 1994 she became a born-again Christian and evangelist. She died of renal failure, a consequence of her drug abuse two decades earlier, at the age of 57.

Was your mom a middle-aged punk-rock singer expounding on matters of sexuality and gender? If so, then your mom might be Vi Subversa, frontwoman of early-’80s British anarcho-punk outfit Poison Girls. Born in 1935 as Frances Sokolov, she was a 44-year-old mother of two when she adopted her stage name and released her first single with the Poison Girls (whose other three original members were men). Working closely with fellow punk outfit Crass, Subversa pushed a hardline feminist agenda, getting herself assaulted by neo-Nazis for her troubles. She quit recording in 1985 and moved for a while to Israel to do pottery.

US readers will know at least one composition by the arranger and conductor Jimmie Haskell, who has died at 79: the theme to the game show Hollywood Squares. But the rest of us have also heard much of Haskell’s work. Most significantly, it was Haskell who arranged Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water. He changed the song from G major, in which Simon had written it, to E flat major to suit Garfunkel’s voice — a decision that resulted in one of the great vocal performances in pop music. He won a Grammy for this, as he did for Bobby Gentry’s Ode to Billie Joe and Chicago’s If You Leave Me Now (the strings and French horns were conducted by him).

Haskell also arranged on songs such as — deeeep breath (and linked titles take you to mixes previously posted here) — Ricky Nelson’s There’s Nothing I Can Say, Ben E. King’s Don’t Play That Song For Me, Bobby Darin’s Baby Face, Tommy Roe’s Dizzy, The Grass Roots’ Midnight Confessions, The Mamas & The Papas’ I Saw Her Again, Glen Campbell’s Tomorrow Never Comes , Judy Collins’ Chelsea Morning, Cass Elliott’s Make Your Own Kind Of Music, I Can Dream Can’t I and It’s Getting Better, The Free Movement’s I’ve Found Someone Of My Own, The Bee Gees’ Wouldn’t I Be Someone, Clarence Carter’s Patches, B.B. King’s Ghetto Woman, Mac Davis’ Baby Don’t Get Hooked On Me , Four Tops’ Keeper Of The Castle, Candi Staton’s great covers of In The Ghetto and Stand By Your Man, The Doobie Brothers’ Real Love, Steely Dan’s My Old School and Pretzel Logic album (which includes Any Major Dude Will Tell You), Billy Joel’s The Ballad Of Billy The Kid, Albert Hammond’s I Am A Train, Bo Donaldson & The Heywoods’ Who Do You Think You Are, Tina Turner’s Acid Queen, Blondie’s The Tide Is High, Kenny Rogers’ We’ve Got Tonight, Sam Harris’ Over The Rainbow and lots more…

The story of Joe Dowell, a pop singer who has died at the age of 76, illustrates the brute power record labels exerted on their acts. Dowell had luck with his first single: a cover of Elvis Presley’s Wooden Heart (in the US it was just an Elvis b-side to Blue Christmas), it topped the charts in 1961 and became a million-seller, the first for the Smash Records label. Having had enjoyed success, Dowell now wanted to be a singer-songwriter, but Smash’s parent label, Mercury, nixed that idea, forcing Dowell to record only songs which Mercury already owned. Dowell never repeated the success of Wooden Heart, bothering the US charts only two more times, with The Bridge of Love (#50) and Little Red Rented Rowboat (#23). His songwriting ambitions came to nothing. And here’s a Joe Dowell fun fact you might use next time he comes up in conversation: he was born in Bloomington, Indiana, but grew up in Bloomington, Illinois.

Finally, tragedy struck two young bands; spookily both in one single day this month. All members of the English Indie band Viola Beach died in a freak car accident in Sweden on February 13, and three of the five members of US hard rock band CounterFlux perished in another car accident on the same day.

Jon Bunch/Johnny Scars, 45, member of rock bands Sense Field, Further Seems Forever, on Feb. 1

Jim Reeves, 47, German singer and TV host, murdered on Feb. 1

Jimmy Haskell, 79, arranger, conductor and TV/film composer, on Feb. 2
Ben E. King – Don’t Play That Song For Me (1962, as arranger)
Mama Cass – Make You Own Kind Of Music (1969, as arranger)
Billy Joel – The Ballad Of Billy The Kid (1973, as arranger)

Marcus Turner, 59, New Zealand folk singer-songwriter and children’s TV presenter, on Feb. 2

Maurice White, 74, singer, drummer, composer, producer, arranger, on Feb. 4
Ramsey Lewis – Wade In The Water (1966, on drums)
The Salty Peppers – Your Love Is Life (1969)
Minnie Riperton – Les Fleur (1970, on drums)
Earth, Wind & Fire – Love’s Holiday (1977)
Maurice White – Children Of Afrika (1985)

La Velle, 72, jazz, disco and gospel singer, on Feb. 4
La Velle – He’s Alright (1979)

Joe Dowell, 76, pop singer , on Feb. 4
Joe Dowell – Little Red Rented Rowboat (1962)

Ray Colcord, 66, film/TV composer, keyboardist, producer, on Feb. 5
Don McLean – American Pie (1971, on electric keyboard)

Obrey Wilson, 73, soul singer, on Feb. 6
Obrey Wilson – If You Were There (1966)

Dan Hicks, 74, singer-songwriter, on Feb. 6
Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks – How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away (1969)

Gilles Brown, 73, Canadian singer, on Feb. 6

Eddy Wally, 83, Belgian singer, on Feb. 6

Rick Wright, 57, country guitarist, traffic accident on Feb. 7

Kim Williams, 68, country songwriter, on Feb. 11
Randy Travis – Three Wooden Crosses (2002)

Kris Leonard, River Reeves, Tomas Lowe, Jack Dakin, members of English indie band Viola Beach, in a car crash on Feb. 13

Devin Bachmann, Earl Miller II, Kyle Canter, members of US hardrock band CounterFlux, in a car crash on Feb. 13

L.C. Ulmer, 87, blues musician, on Feb. 14
L. C. Ulmer – Hip-Shake (2011)

Vanity, 57, Canadian-born singer of Vanity 6, actress, on Feb. 15
Vanity 6 – Wet Dream (1982)

Paul Gordon, 52, songwriter, arranger; member of New Radicals, B-52’s, on Feb. 18
Vonda Shephard – Searching My Soul (1997, as co-writer)
New Radicals – You Get What You Give (1998, on keyboards)

Brendan Healy, 59, English comedian and musician, on Feb. 18

Vi Subversa, 80, singer-guitarist of British punk band Poison Girls, on Feb. 19
Poison Girls – Pretty Polly (1980)

Rusty Burns, 62, guitarist of rock band Point Blank, on Feb. 19
Point Blank – That’s The Law (1976, also as co-writer)

Harald Devold, 51, Norwegian jazz musician, on Feb. 19

Betty Jane Watson, 94, musical actress-singer and TV presenter, on Feb. 21

Hans Reffert, 69, member of Krautrock band Guru Guru a.o., composer, on Feb. 22

Piotr Grudziński, 40, guitarist of Polish rock band Riverside, on Feb. 22
Riverside – Celebrity Touch (2013)

Sonny James, 87, country singer-songwriter, on Feb. 22
Sonny James – Young Love (1956)

Johnny Murphy, 72, Irish musician and actor (The Commitments), on Feb. 23
The Commitments – Try A Little Tenderness (1991)

Lennie Baker, 69, singer with Sha Na Na, on Feb. 24
Sha Na Na – Blue Moon (1978)

John Chilton, 83, British jazz musician and songwriter, on Feb. 25
George Melly with John Chilton’s Feetwarmers – My Momma Rocks Me (1986)

Nina Dorda, 91, Russian singer, on Feb. 26

James Atkins, 49, bassist of grunge band Hammerbox, on Feb. 27
Hammerbox – Outside (1993)

Gordon Ranney, 53, bassist of rock comedy bands The Gomers, Zombeatles, on Feb. 27

Merritone Blake, 75, Jamaican producer and sound system engineer, on Feb. 27

Josefin Nilsson, 46, Swedish pop singer, on Feb. 29
Josefin Nilsson – When I Watch You In Your Sleep (1996)

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It was utter carnage in January, especially if you add all the thespian deaths to the reaper’s music victims!

In the In Memoriam series I like to feature little-know artists who have died, such as English singer, songwriter and actor David Bowie who started off his career as Davie Jones, made a name for himself as an occasional painter, as leader of early 1960s band The Konrads and eventually as the husband of supermodel Imam.

Well, to be honest, everything that can be said about Bowie has been said. The tributes were glowing and generally paid due respect to the master’s lifetime achievements, right down to his refusal to accept medals and knighthoods from the queen of England. Alas, all that honour will be brutally urinated upon at the Brits later this month. For the occasion a “supergroup” has been put together. Noel Gallagher, Bono, Damon Albarn, Coldplay and Adele on one stage beating the career of David Bowie with sticks. I can hear Bono intoning: “Ziggy played guitar, jamming good with [insert gratuitous lyrics change here with reference to other twats on stage]…” The Oasis goon will perform Suffragette City with that whiny voice, stripping the song of its explosive energy. Coldplay will play… sorry, I forgot, I fell asleep just imagining it. And Adele will foghorn her way through Life On Mars, holding long notes at inappropriate moments. There’ll be an acoustic version of Let’s Dance before they all go on to slaughter Heroes (of course, Heroes!) and do the “we’re not worthy” shtick — bowing for Bowie, so to speak — that always indicates that they think they are in fact very worthy indeed. Bowie’s cremated ashes will flurry in their urn like glitter in a snow globe.

Exactly a week after Bowie, Mott The Hoople drummer Dale Griffin died, aged 67. The band, of course, got their breakthrough thanks to a Bowie track, All The Young Dudes. Bowie had known Hoople bassist Peter Watts and upon learning that the band was going to split due to their lack of success, he offered them Suffragette City. The band turned down the track (luckily so: where would ‘70s pop be without Bowie’s frenzied “aaah wam bam thank you ma’am”?). Bowie took the rejection, graciously sat down on the floor and wrote All The Young Dudes for them. It came out just three weeks after the Ziggy Stardust album and was a huge hit. Drummer Griffin, who went on to produce many John Peel sessions for the BBC, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, the disease that eventually killed him, at the age of 58.

Colin Vearncombe, who has died at 53 after being in an induced coma following injuries sustained in a car crash in Ireland, was best known by the moniker Black, under which he enjoyed a couple of UK hits in 1987. One of these was the beautiful Wonderful Life which was accompanied by a gorgeous video that looks like a coffee table book of exquisite black & white photography. If you’ve never seen it, you will want to (Click here). He had some success with the follow-up albums to Wonderful Life, but then left his major label to record independently. Last year he released to good reviews an album, Blind Faith, which was financed by crowd-funding. Buy it HERE.

The unlikely figure of the Georgian-born, Swiss-raised Giorgio Gomelsky was instrumental in the success of the Rolling Stones and The Yardbirds. It was his blues club, the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond (near London), where the young blues fans that would spearhead much of British rock first congregated. The unknown Stones were his houseband. When they left for bigger things, he replaced them with The Yardbirds, whom he also managed and produced (including their biggest hit, For Your Love). Other acts that played at Crawdaddy included future stars Led Zeppelin, Long John Baldry, Elton John and Rod Stewart. In 1967 Gomelsky set up the Marmalade Records label which gave starts to Julie Driscoll & Brian Auger and Graham Gouldman, Kevin Godley and Lol Crème, who’d become central parts of 10cc.

With Jefferson Airplane, the band he co-founded, Paul Kantner played at the five most important or famous music festivals of the 1960s: The Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival (the first-ever real rock festival) in June 1967 , Monterrey (held a week after), Woodstock and Altamont in the US in ‘69 plus the Isle of Wight festival in 1968 in Britain. The band’s dynamics were complicated at the best of times. In the late ‘60s Kantner was in love with Grace Slick, but she was with drummer Spencer Dryden. But in 1969 Grace split up with Dryden and hooked up with Kantner, with whom she ended up having a daughter, actress and former MTV vee-jay China Wing Kantner (he had two more children). They split in 1975 but would collaborate further musically. Kantner died at 74 from a heart attack but might have gone twice much younger: In the early 1960s he survived a serious motorcycle accident, and in 1980 he recovered, against the odds, from a cerebral hemorrhage.

I don’t think it has ever happened: two members of a band passing away of natural causes on the very same day. But so it was this month with the deaths of Paul Kantner and Jefferson Airplane’s founding singer Signe Toly Anderson, both on January 28. Anderson sang on only the first album in 1966, leaving the band after a final concert on October 15, 1966 at The Fillmore, mainly because she was pregnant and because the other band members didn’t get on with her husband. She was replaced by Grace Slick. Anderson, who had a series of health problems starting in the 1970s, lived in Oregon and performed for nine years with a ten-piece band, Carl Smith and the Natural Gas Company.

The name Otis Clay will be known to some soul fans, but two of his songs crossed over into the pop charts in cover versions. His 1972 song Trying To Live My Life Without You, recorded on the Hi Records label, became a US #5 hit for Bob Seger in 1981; his 1980 song The Ony Way Is Up became a UK #1 in 1988 for Yazz and the Plastic Population. Both originals are featured here.

And if it’s originals you want, this lot also includes that of the early ‘70s hit Mamy Blue, written by French songwriter Hubert Giraud, who has died at 96. More significant than that slice of Euro pop was his 1951 co-composition of Sous le Ciel de Paris, one of the loveliest songs about the city and a staple in Edith Piaf’s repertoire after she recorded it in 1954. In 1958 André Claveau won the Eurovision Song Contest with his song Dors, mon amour. Although he made his name as a composer, Giraud started his career on stage, as part of Django Reinhardt’s jazz ensemble in 1941.

The recent documentary on the Eagles confirmed that Glenn Frey was not an invariably lovely fellow to his colleagues. Of course, I have no idea whether the docu was an accurate representation of the man; he came across as thoughtful man in interviews. I like me some Eagles from time to time, and many of my favourite songs by the group were written or co-written by Frey: Take It To The Limit, I Can’t Tell You Why, Tequila Sunrise, Lyin’ Eyes, Take It Easy, After The Thrill Is Gone, New Kid in Town, Best Of My Love, Desperado… But I do detest his big solo hit: The Heat Is On.

With the death of Kitty Kallen, a voice that began to be heard as long ago as 1936, on US radio, has fallen silent. As a girl Kitty once won an amateur competition and came home with her prize of a camera. Mr Kallen did not believe his daughter had such talent to win singing contests and punished her for stealing the camera. The truth was revealed when neighbours came over to congratulate the family. I hope Kitty took a photo with that camera of her father’s astonished face. She made her recording debut as the singer of the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra, scoring a #1 hit with Besamo Mucho in 1944, and had two further chart-toppers in 1945 with the Harry James Orchestra. She enjoyed a million-selling hit in her own right in 1954 with Little Things Mean A Lot, followed by more big hits with Chapel in the Moonlight, True Love and If I Give My Heart to You. She retired in the 1960s due to lung disease.

Impresario Robert Stigwood left his mark on popular culture in many ways by making sure stuff happened. In the 1960s the Australian managed Cream and the Bee Gees, turning the latter into stars. He produced the mega hit movies Saturday Night Fever, which turned disco into a phenomenon that would burn itself out, and Grease. Both soundtracks were million-sellers on Stigwood’s RSO label which, apart from the Bee Gees, also had artists such as Eric Clapton, Yvonne Elliman and Player on their books. RSO released more soundtracks, including those for Times Square, Fame and The Empire Strikes Back. But Stigwood also suffered failures, none more public than the much-derided Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band movie. There was an irony in that: in January 1967 Stigwood merged with Beatles manager Brian Epstein’s NEMS Enterprises management company. At one point Epstein mooted the idea that Stigwood might become Beatles manager, only to face a rebellion from the Fab Four who disliked Stigwood. Epstein learnt to do likewise, though Stigwood left NEMS only after Brian’s death in 1968 — and went on to form his multi-faceted entertainment behemoth RSO.The bassist of what Kerrang! once named as the greatest heavy metal album of all time is gone. Scottish-born Jimmy Bain played on Rainbow’s Rising album in 1976. By early 1977 Ritchie Blackmore had sacked him. In 1978 Bain formed Wild Horses who went on to release two albums in the early 1980s while also doing session work for the likes of John Cale, Thin Lizzy, Roy Harper and Kate Bush (playing on Sat In Your Lap, Leave It Open, and Get Out Of My House on The Dreaming album). He also worked with Phil Lynott, co-writing his Old Town which became a big hit in the 1990s for The Corrs. In 1983 he was close to joining German heavy metal band Scorpions; instead he joined Dio, reuniting with former Rainbow singer Ronnie James Dio, with whom he co-write some of the band’s best-known songs, including Holy Diver.

To people who have lived in Britain in the past four decades, the name Terry Wogan will mean something. Although well known as an avuncular chat show host or radio presenter or charity fundraiser, he probably was most famous as the commentator of the Eurovision Song Contest, which over the course of more than 30 years the Irish-born entertainer treated with a certain measure of disdain and sarcasm. Among the many one-liners he’d shoot off, the best might be this from 2007: “Who knows what hellish future lies ahead? Actually, I do. I’ve seen the rehearsals.” The irony is that his foray into the British charts, 1978’s Floral Dance, was worse than many of the songs this decent man commentated on. I won’t inflict it upon you; if you must, watch it HERE.

The world’s porniest singer, perhaps alongside the exhibitionist Rudy Ray Moore, is gone with the death of Blowfly, whose record covers tended to feature ladies in states of undress while he wore nightmarish masks and outfits. Among the charming titles of Blowfly songs are: “Can I Come In Your Mouth?”, “Too Fat To Fuck”, “Electronic Pussy Sucker”, “Spermy Night In Georgia”, “My Baby Keeps Farting In My Face” and “The Sperm Is Gone”. In his defence, he did those only for fun, and some of them have killer grooves. Clarence Reid, as Blowfly’s mom knew him, had a serious side: he recorded under his own name and also wrote for and produced artists including Betty Wright, Sam & Dave, Irma Thomas, Gwen McCrae, Wilson Picket, Jimmy “Bo” Horn, Bobby Byrd, Dusty Springfield, Timmy Thomas and KC & the Sunshine Band. Needless to say, the featured Sesame Street Theme is NSFW!

Mark B, 45, British hip-hop DJ and record producer, on Jan. 1

Michel Delpech, 69, French singer-songwriter and actor, on Jan. 2
Michel Delpech – Pour Un Flirt (1971)

Jason Mackenroth, 46, drummer with Henry Rollins Band, Blue Man Group, on Jan. 3

Paul Bley, 83, Canadian free jazz pianist, on Jan. 3

Robert Stigwood, 81, Australian music, theatre and film impresario, on Jan. 4
Cream – White Room (1967, as arranger)
Bee Gees – My World (1972, as co-producer)

Long John Hunter, 84, blues guitarist and singer-songwriter, on Jan. 4
Long John Hunter – She Used To Be My Woman (1953)
Long John Hunter – Lone Star Shootout (1996)

Achim Mentzel, 69, German musician and TV presenter, on Jan. 4

Nick Caldwell, 71, extravagantly bearded singer with The Whispers, on Jan. 5
The Whispers – Never Again (1964)
The Whispers – Here Comes Tomorrow (1972)
The Whispers – Love Is Where You Find It (1981)

Alfredo ‘Chocolate’ Armenteros, 87, Cuban-born trumpeter, on Jan. 6

Amy Regan, 30, folk-pop singer, on Jan. 6

Troy Shondell, 76, pop singer, on Jan. 7
Troy Shondell – This Time (1961)

Kitty Kallen, 94, vocalist, on Jan. 7
Jimmy Dorsey and his Orchestra – They’re Either Too Young Or Too Old (1943, on vocals)
Kitty Kallen – Little Things Mean A Lot (1954)

Jit Samaroo, 65, Trinidadian steelpan musician and arranger, on Jan. 7

Otis Clay, 73, soul singer, on Jan. 8
Otis Clay – Trying To Live My Life Without You (1972)
Otis Clay – The Only Way Is Up (1980)

Red Simpson, 81, country singer and songwriter, on Jan. 8
Red Simpson – Diesel Smoke, Dangerous Curves (1967)

Brett Smiley, 60, glam pop singer and songwriter, on Jan. 8
Brett Smiley – Va Va Va Voom (1974)

John Berry, singer and guitarist of Indie band Idaho, on Jan. 9

David Bowie, 69, legend, on Jan. 10
Davie Jones & The King Bees – Liza Jane (1964)
David Bowie – Ragozzo Solo, Ragazza Sola (1970)
David Bowie – Ziggy Stardust (demo) (1972)
David Bowie – Heroes (French version) (1977)
David Bowie – Rebel Rebel (1985, at Live Aid)

Jack Penland, 79, bluegrass singer and guitarist, on Jan. 10

Giorgio Gomelsky, 81, impresario, band manager, songwriter, producer, on Jan. 13
The Yardbirds – I’m A Man (1965)
Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & The Trinity – This Wheel’s On Fire (1967, as producer)

George Grant, 78, lead singer of R&B band The Castelles, on Jan. 14
The Castelles – Over A Cup Of Coffee (1954)

Pete Huttlinger, 54, country guitarist (John Denver), on Jan. 15

Gary Loizzo, 70, singer of The American Breed, record engineer and producer, on Jan. 16
The American Breed – Bend Me, Shape Me (1968)

Hubert Giraud, 94, French songwriter, on Jan. 16
Edith Piaf – Sous le Ciel de Paris (1954, as composer)
Ivana Spagna – Mamy Blue (1971, as composer)

Dale Griffin, 67, drummer of Mott The Hoople, on Jan. 17
Mott The Hoople – All The Young Dudes (1972)
Mott The Hoople – The Saturday Gigs (1974)

Mic Gillette, 64, brass player of funk band Tower of Power, on Jan. 17
Tower Of Power – This Time It’s Real (1973)
Mic Gillette Band – Put It Where You Want It (2015)

Clarence ‘Blowfly’ Reid, 76, soul-funk musician, songwriter and producer, on Jan. 17
Betty Wright – Clean Up Woman (1972, as co-writer and producer)
Blowfly – Sesame Street Theme (1974)

Ramblin’ Lou Schriver, 86, country musician and radio broadcaster, on Jan. 17

Glenn Frey, 67, member of Eagles, singer-songwriter, actor, on Jan. 18
Eagles – After The Thrill Is Gone (1975)
Glenn Frey – The One You Love (1982)
Eagles – Take It Easy (live 1994)

Alec Wishart, 76, member of New Zealand band Hogsnort Rupert, on Jan. 22

Curtis Potter, 75, country musician and record label owner, on Jan. 23
Curtis Potter – I’m A Real Glad Daddy (1957)

Cadalack Ron, 34, rapper, on Jan. 23

Jimmy Bain, 68, bassist of Rainbow, Dio, on Jan. 24
Rainbow – Starstruck (1976)
Philip Lynott – Old Town (1982, also as co-writer)
Dio – Holy Diver (1983, also as co-writer)

Zarkus Poussa, 40, drummer of Finnish electro-jazz band RinneRadio, on Jan. 24

Black/Colin Vearncombe, 53, British singer-songwriter, from car crash injuries on Jan. 26
Black – Sweetest Smile (1987)
Colin Vearncombe – Wonderful Life (live, 2001)

Bryce Rohde, 92, Australian jazz pianist and composer, on Jan. 26

T.J. Tindall, 65, session guitarist, member of MFSB, on Jan. 26
The O’Jays – Backstabbers (1972, on guitar)
The Trammps – Disco Inferno (1976, on guitar)

Joe Harris, 89, jazz drummer (Dizzy Gillespie), on Jan. 27

William E. Martin, musician, songwriter and screenwriter, on Jan. 27
Harry Nilsson – Rainmaker (1969, as co-writer)

Paul Kantner, 74, guitarist, singer, songwriter and co-founder of Jefferson Airplane/ Starship, on Jan. 28
Jefferson Airplane – Volunteers (1969, also as co-writer)
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Wooden Ships (1969, as co-writer)

Signe Toly Anderson, 74, singer with Jefferson Airplane, on Jan. 28
Jefferson Airplane – Chauffeur Blues (1966, on lead vocals)

Terry Wogan, 77, Irish-born broadcaster and entertainer, on Jan. 31

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In what might be his best-known song, Ace of Spades, Motörhead’s frontman Lemmy Kilmister sang: “That’s the way I like it, Baby; I don’t want to live forever”. Just after Christmas he got his wish — only just over a month after the death of Motörhead drummer Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor. Lemmy, who was widely believed to be indestructible and therefore immortal, had learnt of his aggressive cancer only a couple of days before his death. Reportedly he checked out playing his favourite video game.

On the day Lemmy died one of the pioneers of rock & roll also went (coming too late to my attention for inclusion in the annual round-up of music deaths which I posted on New Year’s Eve). Saxophonist Joe Houston was a pioneer without being really a rock & roller. His jam was the jump, but he used the terminology of “rock and roll” and “rockin’” before it became a big thing, on a 1952 album titled Rock And Roll which included titles like titles such as “We’re Gonna Rock ‘N’ Roll” and “Rockin’ At The Drive-In” (Hear the latter HERE). Of course, the term had been used before, even by Ella Fitzgerald. But Houston was part of the movement that would give rise to the genre. His style of playing sax certainly became a feature of rock & roll. Houston went on to back the likes of Little Richard and Big Joe Turner during the rock & roll heyday. He never broke through, but played on the circuit until a stroke hit him in 2005. Apparently his gigs were raucous affairs

I was really saddened to hear of the death at 65 of Natalie Cole on New Year’s Eve. She was a fine singer, equally at home in soul as she was in jazz vocals. She also has a fascinating life which she recounted in a forthright memoir. Born the daughter of Nat King Cole, who died when Natalie was 14, she became a heroin addict and fraudster, and even worked as a prostitutes’ “come-on girl” on the streets of Harlem. Then she cleaned up, had a string of soul hits, faded away and became a cocaine addict. She again cleaned up, and had a comeback in 1987 with I Live For Your Love. In 1991 she had her massive hit with a posthumous duet with her father, with modern technology facilitating as recording of his hit Unforgettable.

With his cousin Hugo Peretti (who died in 1986), Luigi Creatore adapted two foreign songs to create classic hits: The Token’s The Lion Sleeps Tonight (originally a South African song by Solomon Linda; read the who sorry tale here) and Elvis’ Can’t Help Falling In Love, which borrowed heavily from the old French love song Plaisir d’amour, composed in 1785 by Johann Paul Aegidius Martini. Hugo & Luigi, as they liked to style themselves, also produced Perry Como, Little Peggy March and Sam Cooke (notably hits like Chain Gang, Twistin’ the Night Away and Wonderful World) for RCA. Before that they produced a string of hits for Jimmie Rodgers, including Honeycomb and Kisses Sweeter Than Wine. These were released on the Roulette label in which they were partners with mafioso Mo Levy. The FBI identified Roulette as a source of revenue for the Genovese crime family (Peretti and Creatore were not implicated in illegal activity). In the 1970s they were partners in Avco Embassy Records, for whom acts like Van McCoy, The Stylistics, Maxine Brown and The Softones had hits.

Gladys Knight’s heavenly voice and perfect delivery overshadows everything, but The Pips were more than just a trio of backing singers. Many of the songs were arranged with their part as an integral part of the performance. Just listen to their vocals on the most famous Gladys Knight & The Pips song, Midnight Train To Georgia, for evidence of that. On Christmas Eve one of the Pips, William Guest, joined the great Soul Train in the Sky at the age of 74. The group members were all related: Gladys and her brother Bubba Knight were cousins to Guest and Edward Patton, who in 2005 was the first of them to die. The Pips, incidentally, were named after the nickname of another cousin. Look at The Pips performing their routine on The Richard Pryor Show in 1977, without Gladys.

Wally Roker was a rare breed in his day: in the 1950s he was a black musician who was savvy in the music industry and wasn’t going to be taken for a ride. As the bass singer of doo wop band The Heartbeats he also took care of the group’s business affairs. His savvy later led to the founding of the massively influential Scepter label, for which he was the A&R man. It was at Scepter that Burt Bacharach first made his mark with his records for the likes of Dionne Warwick and Chuck Jackson. Roker remained a record exec for the rest of his career. The featured song is a proto type for Daddy’s Home, a 1961 hit for Shep and the Limelites — it was written by Shep Sheppard, a member of both groups.

With John Garner, singer of Sir Lord Baltimore, one of the pioneering voices of heavy metal is gone. In a genre that thrives on the frontman throwing poses, Garner was an anomaly: the lead singer who was also the drummer. Co-produced by Mike Appel, who’d become Bruce Springsteen’s mentor, Sir Lord Baltimore released their first album in 1970, titled Kingdom Come. In a review, Creem applied to it one of the earliest uses of the label “heavy metal” (the magazine had done so half a year earlier, probably for the first time, in reference to Humble Pie). One more LP followed; by 1976 the band had broken up. They reformed in 2006, releasing one CD, and then faded away again.

The producer Snuff Garrett merits mention for his work with artists such as Cher (with and without Sonny), Vicky Lawrence, Telly Savalas, Tanya Tucker, Merle Haggard, Smokey Robinson, Randy Crawford, Frank Sinatra, Sonny Curtis, Bobby Vee, Johnny Burnette, Brian Hyland, Eddie Cochran, The Crickets, Julie London, Peggy Lee, Liza Minnelli, Gene McDaniels (including Tower of Strength, featured on The Originals – Burt Bacharach Collection) , Jan & Dean, Gary Lewis & the Playboys and Del Shannon, or for giving young guys like Phil Spector, Scott Walker and Leon Russell an early leg-up in the industry, or for missing out on the gig of producing The Monkees. But what is particularly interesting about Garrett, a Texan who has died at 77, has nothing to do with music. In the 1970s he bought the cassette rights to the old RKO and Republic films for next to nothing. A few years later the video recorder became a big thing and films on video cassettes big business. Garrett’s collection, bought as a hobby, went on to earn him many millions.

Shirley Gunter, 82, pioneering R&B singer, on Dec. 1
Shirley Gunter & The Queens – Oop Shoop (1954)

Leoni Franco, 73, musician with Uruguayan pop band Los Iracundos, on Dec. 1

Wally Roker, 78, Bass singer with doo wop group The Heartbeats, on Dec. 2
The Heartbeats – A Thousand Miles Away (1957)

Kelvin Knight , 56, drummer of punk bands The Axe, Delta 5, on Dec. 2

Scott Weiland, 48, singer of Stone Temple Pilots, Velvet Revolver, on Dec. 3
Stone Temple Pilots – Trippin’ On A Hole In A Paper Heart (1996)

J Capri, 23, Jamaican dancehall singer, in traffic accident on Dec. 4

Chris Carney, 35, singer with The Prom Kings, in traffic accident on Dec. 4

John Garner, 63, singer and drummer of rock band Sir Lord Baltimore, on Dec. 5
Sir Lord Baltimore – Lady Of Fire (1970)

Marque Lynche, 34, singer and former Mouseketeer, announced on Dec. 6

Gary Marker, 72, bassist (Rising Sons, Captain Beefheart) and recording engineer, on Dec. 8
Rising Sons – Candy Man (1966)

Bonnie Lou, 91, country/roackabilly singer, on Dec. 8
Bonnie Lou – Daddy-O (1955)

Rusty Jones, 73, American jazz drummer, on Dec. 9
George Shearing – The World Is A Ghetto (1975, on drums)

Rainer Bloss, 69, German electronic musician, on Dec. 10

Luigi Creatore, 93, songwriter and record producer, on Dec. 13
Sam Cooke – Chain Gang (1960, as co-producer)
Elvis Presley – Wild In The Country (1961, as co-writer)

Snuff Garrett, 76, record producer, on Dec. 16
Bobby Vee – The Night Has A Thousand Eyes (1962, as co-writer and producer)
Cher – Gypsys, Tramps And Thieves (1970, as producer)
Telly Savalas – If (1974, as producer)

Adam Roth, 57, guitarist with rock band Del Fuegos, on Dec. 16
The Del Fuegos – I Still Want You (1986)

Mick Lynch, singer of Irish indie rock band Stump, on Dec. 17
Stump – Charlton Heston (1988)

Gareth ‘Morty’ Mortimer, 66, lead-singer of Welsh pop group Racing Cars, on Dec. 17
Racing Cars – They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1976)

Peter Broggs, 61, Jamaican reggae musician, on Dec. 19

Sam Dockery, 86, jazz pianist, on Dec. 21

Carson Van Osten, 70, bassist with Todd Rundgren and Disney comics artist, on Dec. 22
Nazz – Hello It’s Me (1968)

William Guest, 74, co-founder and member of Gladys Knight & the Pips, on Dec. 24
Gladys Knight & The Pips- Every Beat Of My Heart (1961)
Gladys Knight & The Pips – I Heard It Through The Grapevine (1968)
Gladys Knight & The Pips – Heavy Makes You Happy (1973)

Stevie Wright, 68, lead-singer of Australian rock group The Easybeats, on Dec. 27
The Easybeats – Friday On My Mind (1966)

Andy M. Stewart, 63, Scottish folk singer, formerly with Silly Wizard, on Dec. 27
Andy M. Stewart – The Ramblin’ Rover (1982)

John Bradbury, 62, drummer of English two-tone band The Specials, on Dec. 28
The Specials – Rat Race (1980)
Special A.K.A. – Free Nelson Mandela (1984)

Lemmy Kilmister, 70, singer of Motörhead, Hawkwind, on Dec. 28
Hawkwind – Silver Machine (1972)
Motörhead – Killed By Death (1984)

Joe Houston, 89, R&B and jazz saxophonist, on Dec. 28
Joe Houston – Worry, Worry, Worry (1952)
  Joe Houston & His Rockets – Teen Age Boogie (1958)

Ron Ford, 67, funk singer and songwriter (Parliament, Funkadelic, P-Funk Allstars), on Dec. 28
P-Funk All Stars – Pumpin’ It Up (1983, also as co-writer)

Guru Josh, 51, British acid house musician, on Dec. 28
Guru Josh – Infinity (1989)

Dal Richards, 97, Canadian big band leader, on Dec. 31

Natalie Cole, 65, soul and jazz singer, on Dec. 31
Natalie Cole – This Will Be (1975)
Frank Sinatra with Natalie Cole – I Get A Kick Out Of You (1977)
Natalie Cole – Good To Be Back (1989)

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