The great pianist-arranger-composer
Clare Fischer has died. Besides being a mean pianist who even Herbie Hancock called a huge influence, very few could claim the achievements of this man, who worked with everyone from Dizzy Gillespie, the Hi-Los and other jazzmen to Prince, Rufus and Chaka Khan, Paul McCartney, Prince, and so many more.
posted by Seekerofsplendor
on Jan 28, 2012 -
9 comments
Speaking of Dub (the real kind), just over one year ago the music world lost one of its
pioneers in the realm of dub and roots. Vivian "
Yabby You" Jackson produced some of the most hard driving reggae ever released. RIP.
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posted by Jibuzaemon
on Jan 21, 2012 -
9 comments
Chances are that sometime, somewhere, out of the corner of one ear, at least, you've heard the iconic (yet all-but-forgotten) "Willie and the Hand Jive". Set to a Bo Diddley beat, it was an infectious little number that made quite a splash back in its day. Here's a fun
live version of the bouncy tune, complete with the three largest dancing girls you're ever likely to see, and here's the
original 1958 recording. The composer of the tune, the son of Greek immigrants who decided that the world of black music was where he wanted to be, was one
Johnny Otis, who has just
died at the grand old age of 90. Shortly after its release, "Willie and the Hand Jive" was covered by early rock icons like
Bo Diddley and, across the pond in England,
Cliff Richard. But apart from his most famous tune, Johnny did a LOT of recording and performing throughout his lengthy career, so there's...
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posted by flapjax at midnite
on Jan 19, 2012 -
42 comments
The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government.
- Justice Anthony Kennedy
John Geddes Lawrence, the defendant in
the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that declared sodomy laws unconstitutional across the country, died on Nov. 20, according to
an obituary posted by R.S. Farmer Funeral Home in Silsbee, Texas. He was 68.
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posted by rtha
on Dec 28, 2011 -
33 comments
"Almost everything I do is based on other texts anyway. Without plagiarism, there would be no literature. I'm a rewrite man." The poet Christoper Logue has died, aged 85. Logue had a varied career, at various points serving in the British Army (and being arrested for espionage after a drunken threat to sell secrets), writing pornography under the
nom de plume Count Palmiro de Vicarion, recording
George Martin-produced, "
heroically daft" jazz recitals of the poems of Pablo Neruda (
YT) and regularly contributing to the British satirical magazine
Private Eye, where he edited
Pseuds' Corner, while finding the time to be arrested again, for civil disobedience as part of Bertrand Russell's
Committee of 100.
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posted by running order squabble fest
on Dec 4, 2011 -
14 comments
Zdeněk Miler, the animator of the beloved Krtek ("Little Mole") animations died today. Conceived in 1954 after stumbling on a mole's burrow on his evening walk, Krtek appeared in about fifty films all drawn by Miler. The first Krtek film ("
How Krtek Got His Pants"), originally an educational video about the manufacture of linen, won first prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1957. The Krtek films have been aired in about eighty countries. Miler's young daughters did the uber-cute vocalizations for Krtek, and were the films' test audience as Miler tweaked the films per their suggestions. Here are some perennial favorites:
Krtek and the Radio,
Krtek and the Green Star,
Krtek at Christmas,
Krtek and the Robot.
Miler, like most film buffs, was surprised that Krtek had remained largely unknown in the United States.
"Pretty much the whole world knows Krtek," Mr. Miler said. "America, which is usually first in everything, is last in this. I always look at American history," he said, "and it is a very hard one. People came. They conquered a continent. They suffered hardships, and that hardship is reflected in its movies. I look at children there and think what they are watching is a reflection of that hardness. If you look at America, it is epic. Whereas here, it is more poetic. I feel here there is more lyricism."
posted by Atrahasis
on Nov 30, 2011 -
23 comments
Growing up, she was a beloved celebrity in her home country. Thousands of girls were named after her. So was a bestselling
perfume. But Josef Stalin's "Little Sparrow," his only daughter, (born Svetlana Stalina) defected to the United States in 1967. Upon arriving in New York, she promptly held a
press conference that surprised the world, denouncing her father's regime.
Svetlana became a naturalized US citizen, moved to Taliesin West, married an American, changed her name to Lana Peters, then returned to the Soviet Union in 1984,
declaring that she had not been free "for one single day" in the U.S., only to once
again return to America in 1986. She lived out her remaining days in a
small town in Wisconsin. Mrs. Peters
passed away from
colon cancer on November 22nd, at the age of 85. [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Nov 28, 2011 -
39 comments
According to breaking
news,
Dennis Ritchie, inventor of the C programming language, co-author with Brian Kernigham of the famous
book on it, and creator with Ken Thompson of the Unix operating system, has died.
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posted by grimjeer
on Oct 12, 2011 -
242 comments
Mansoor 'Tiger' Ali Khan, erstwhile Indian cricket captain,
has died. His legacy evokes a previous era in Indian history: a last-generation Royal blinded in one eye as a young man, he captained the Oxford then the Indian teams (
his father had played for Oxford and England before captaining India), and married movie actress
Sharmila Tagore with whom he had children who went on to become movie stars themselves.
Some memories of a man known for his cricketing skill, style and charisma.
posted by the mad poster!
on Sep 22, 2011 -
20 comments
Somewhere along the line, you might've heard one of the biggest hits to ever come out of the world of jazz: it was a song originally made famous by Les McCann and Eddie Harris back in 1969, called
Compared To What. If you were in the right place at the right time, you might've even caught them doing it
live. Or, if you were born a little too late for all that, you might've heard the song performed by
John Legend and the Roots. Well, the man who wrote the song,
Gene McDaniels, has just
left us at age 76. RIP Gene McDaniels.
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Aug 2, 2011 -
25 comments
"I knew that by assembling seven different people and forcing them to live together, the show would have great philosophical implications". Television genius
Sherwood Schwartz,
dies at 94.
posted by mazola
on Jul 12, 2011 -
81 comments
American football player John Mackey has died at 69. Mackey, who scored a 75-yard touchdown for the Baltimore Colts in their victory in 1971's
Super Bowl V, suffered from dementia. His wife Sylvia petitioned the NFL to create the
88 Plan, a program that pays for health care for NFL veterans with dementia. By 2007, Mackey, then 65,
could not recognize former teammate Ralph Wenzel or distinguish coffee from soup. When the 88 Plan (so-named after Mackey's jersey number) was implemented in 2006, the NFL maintained that the plan, and the 97 players who then qualified for its assistance, "
doesn't imply any link between football and brain damage".
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posted by Snarl Furillo
on Jul 7, 2011 -
45 comments
"A ballet dancer needs a mirror to perfect her style, her technique. A singer needs the same -- an aural mirror."
In 1950 and '51, Japan’s first reel-to-reel tape recorders, the "
G-Type"
(for gov't use) and the "
H-1"
(for home use) were released by a company named Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo. Music student Norio Ohga was unimpressed by the wobbly sound of "
Talking Paper," so he wrote a note complaining to the firm's founders, who hired him. Mr. Ohga never achieved his original dream of becoming a baritone opera singer, but the future President of TTK, (later renamed Sony,) would still make an indelible, global impact on the world of music -- including the development and introduction of the compact disc. Mr. Ohga
died on April 24, 2011.
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posted by zarq
on May 4, 2011 -
3 comments
Louisiana-born, Texas-based record producer
Huey Meaux, the so-called "Crazy Cajun", has
died. He was the man behind
Barbara Lynn's 1962 hit
You'll Lose a Good Thing. Three years later, in a move to cash in on the British Invasion, he created a faux-British rock band called "the Sir Douglas Quintet" around San Antonio-born singer-songwriter
Doug Sahm, and produced their hit,
She's About a Mover. Meaux also produced Tex-Mex rocker
Freddy Fender's bilingual hit
Before the Next Teardrop Falls as well as Fender's
Wasted Days and Wasted Nights. Sadly, however, Meaux had a very ugly darker side: he was arrested not once but twice on child-sex charges, doing prison time in the late 60s, and an 11-year bid from '96 to '07. Some of the ugly details of this side of his life are detailed in this
Houston Press article from 1996, shortly after his arrest, which will pretty much make your skin crawl... Well, so long Huey.
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Apr 26, 2011 -
50 comments
