People die all the time, including in over the last year. From Alan Livingston to Zeke Zarchy, talents who’ve contributed to the sound tracks of our lives died in 2009. Enjoy and add whatever memories or other music in the comments.
Here’s Mary Travers in a duet from 1963 Newport Folk Festival reminding us that the struggle continues.
Not music, but inspiration of another kind:
Alan Livingston was president of Capitol Records who signed the Beatles, Beach Boys & The Band to the label. Amongst many other things, he penned this song while with the label’s children’s division earlier in his career. Amongst other things, I guess we’d have had to find a different nickname for MSNBC’s Chris Matthews without Alan Livingston:
Zeke Zarchy, jazz trumpet played on Benny Goodman "Bugle Call Rag", and with other big bands, too. Played for "Glenn Miller Story" - one of seven original band members to provide music for the soundtrack:
Sam "Bluzman" Taylor - singer songwriter guitarist for the pioneering integrated pop band, Joey Dee & the Starlighters. More recently:
Les Paul !!!!!! (do I need to explain that he invented the solid-body electric guitar?)
Eleanor "Ellie" Greenwich did some singing, but her songwriting is much more to the point. Tons of hits - I only picked these two because of certain thematic similarities:
Veronica Bennett was in a 60s girl group with her sister Estelle. Ronnie married Phil Spector and is the only one of the Ronettes we remember by name. Ellie Greenwich wrote several of their hits (with her husband), including this one:
dengre wrote a great diary the other day: Two Right Wing Memes that Infect Our Politics. I thought it deserved more attention than it got. Parenthetically, his tip jar was a eulogy to Vic Chestnutt, a musician friend of his, who just died this just past Christmas Day.
Many of these talents lived to a ripe old age. But Steve Gately, Irish Pop Singer, one of two lead singers for Boyzone, was only 33 when he died while on vacation in Mallorca, perhaps an accidental electrocution. Here from the movie Watership Down:
John Martyn wrote this song. Eric Clapton’s version is much better known:
Louie Bellson, jazz drummer, born Luigi Paulino Alfredo Francesco Antonio Balassoni and married to Pearl Bailey.
Barry Beckett, keyboards of the Muscle Shoals rhythm section. He played on, and/or arranged and/or produced countless hit songs, including many of Bob Seger’s hits. One of his famous studio performances is on Paul Simon’s "Still Crazy After All These Years" (not to be found on the many live versions on YT), and also on this one (especially note from 2:55 on):
Some of these, I'm just gonna link, to cut the bandwidth loading the diary:
- Mike Seeger of the New Lost City Ramblers
- Steve Ferguson, NRBQ (New Rhythm & Blues Quartet/Quintet) for their first 12 albums.
- Ted Hockridge, star of London's West End musical theater in the 1950s.
- Dan Seals, of England Dan and John Ford Coley died in Nashville this year. Used to hear their I'd Really Love to See You Again on the radio headphones working nights at the post office in the late 70s. I never bought the record, but definitely know the song from that time. That’s definitely 70s hair, too. Dan Seals of England Dan & John Ford Coley died in Nashville this year.
- Billy Powell, who played keyboards for Lynyrd Skynyrd is gone, too. You can hear him on Sweet Home Alabama. h/t to Brooke in Seattle, who added that Ean Evans, bassist for Lynyrd Skynyrd also left us.
Vern Gosdin, country singer:
Dewey Martin, drummer for Buffalo Springfield. Here, appearing on the Smothers Brothers show in 1967:
Eddie Bo - American classic R&B singer-songwriter and one of the last New Orleans junker-style pianists. He had a hit in 1962 with Check Mr. Popeye:
There’s been more than enough comment on this guy:
Even Fred Astaire called to compliment this great dancing:
Bonus, happy birthday to Country Joe McDonald (Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die from Woodstock) and a coupla greats who died on New Year’s Day in years gone by: Hank Williams Hey Good Lookin', and Townes Van Zandt If I Needed You.