Rolling Obituary Thread: 2015

https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6568888/bruce-lundvall-blue-note-records-veteran-beloved-label-executive-dead-at-79

A self-described "failed saxophone player," Bruce took an entry level marketing job at Columbia Records in 1960 and over the following two decades rose to lead the North American division of the label, signing artists including Dexter Gordon, Herbie Hancock, Stan Getz, Wynton Marsalis & Willie Nelson. After launching the Elektra/Musician label in 1982, he received the offer of a lifetime in 1984 when EMI approached him about reviving Blue Note Records which had been dormant for several years. He jumped at the chance, partnering with producer Michael Cuscuna to bring back the label's earlier stars like Jimmy Smith, McCoy Tyner, Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson & Jackie McLean, and signing new artists including Dianne Reeves, Cassandra Wilson, Michel Petrucciani, John Scofield, Charlie Hunter and Medeski Martin & Wood.

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Under Bruce’s stewardship Blue Note established itself as the most-respected and longest-running jazz label in the world. He presided over a prosperous nearly-30-year period of the label's history, reaching commercial heights with artists including Bobby McFerrin, Us3, Norah Jones, Al Green and Amos Lee, while recording some of the most important jazz artists of our time including Joe Lovano, Greg Osby, Jason Moran, Robert Glasper, Ambrose Akinmusire, Don Pullen, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Terence Blanchard, Jacky Terrasson, and many others.

Happy Rockefeller, second wife of Nelson and a likely impediment to his presidential ambition

“Have we come to the point where a governor can desert his wife and children, and persuade a young woman to abandon her four children and husband?” former senator Prescott Bush (R-Conn.) told the New York Times at the time. “Have we come to the point where one of the two great parties will confer its greatest honor on such a one? I venture to hope not.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/05/20/happy-rockefeller-dies-at-88-a-symbol-of-old-political-taboos/

i waited on lundvall once in a restaurant and we talked for a half hour about music before his date got there. he was super excited about how this new woman was going to have a hugely popular album and really put him back on the map. it was norah jones. He took my address and then sent me a box of blue note cds. RIP, real class act.

Michael Montano of Filth passed away. The Shit Split and Crimpshrine were very important to teenaged me

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/CultureSpyBlog/archives/2015/05/20/michael-mike-o-the-psycho-montano-of-filth-died-last-monday

edit: Strychnine, not Crimpshrine duh

http://www.soultracks.com/story-louis-johnson-dies

Louis Johnson, the renowned bass player who was one-half of the popular musical group The Brothers Johnson, has reportedly died at age 60. Both as a member of the sibling duo and as a session musician, Johnson was lauded as one of the great bass players of his generation. His slap-bass style earned him the nickname "Thunder Thumbs" and brought a fresh sound that was just right for the emerging funk music scene of the 70s and early 80s.

Aw man so young! Rip

Love their version of strawberry letter 23 so fucking much

Terry Sue-Patt aka Benny from Grange Hill
http://www.itv.com/news/2015-05-22/grange-hill-actor-terry-sue-patt-has-died-aged-50/

:(

60s pop singer Lynn 'Twinkle' Ripley
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3093638/Sixties-pop-starlet-said-no-Mick-Jagger.html

:(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYSM-Ts_2V0

http://www.nj.com/middlesex/index.ssf/2015/05/famed_a_beautiful_mind_mathematician_wife_killed_in_taxi_crash_police_say.html

:(

A Beautiful Mind is such a good book, so much better than the movie: none of that imaginary friend & enemy bullshit, and a multi-D social map of Nash's life and times. Also his wife's!

If one had survived the other, prob not for long: that kind of marriage. Hope their son, who has had his own recurring problems with schizophrenia, is adequately cared for, though I'm sure they made provisions. Maybe he's gotten better as he's gotten older, as happened with his father, although of course it's not just a matter of outgrowing it.

https://twitter.com/AP/status/602559040326086656

Actress, comedian Anne Meara, mom of Ben Stiller, dies at 85

:(

A sign of my age (37), perhaps, but my first association with her will always be Alf.

RIP

Stiller & Meara were ubiquitous on TV variety shows when I was a kid. In the '80s I saw her play the Nurse in Romeo & Juliet at the Public Theatre.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H--kLKTGzaQ

Ben directed a web series of Stiller & Meara a few years ago, it was so good. They would talk about Fashion Week or the Royal Wedding, still as hilarious together as ever. It's still on hulu I think?

xpost i love that clip Morbs. so effortless

Tanith Lee

http://scifibulletin.com/2015/05/26/rip-tanith-lee/

Jesus fucking Christ! I read one Tanith Lee story a couple of years ago and it made me so happy I stocked up several of her books that I've been itching to read for a while.

I read a couple of her novels: Dark Dance and the one that came after that. Though, tbf, that was only cos I borrowed them off the goth-y girl that I was going out with in the mid-90s

Photographer Mary Ellen Mark
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/27/arts/design/mary-ellen-mark-photographer-who-documented-difficult-subjects-dies-at-75.html

U2's Road manager Dennis Sheehan, while on the road with the band:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-32912761

note: Is it really necessary to add below the "other bad things that have happened to U2" section? The edge fell over, Bono's hospital stay, their album being given free as a download....

http://www.nola.com/music/index.ssf/2015/05/mel_waiters_southern_soul_blue.html

Mel Waiters, the flashy rhythm and blues singer known for soulful party songs like "Hole In The Wall" and "The Smaller The Club," died early Thursday (May 28) after a short battle with cancer, his booking agent's office confirmed. He was 58.

Great voice and talented songwriter. Glad I saw him in concert once.

Betsy Palmer

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/31/betsy-palmer-dead_n_7480870.html

Folk singer Jean Ritchie: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/03/arts/music/jean-ritchie-who-revived-appalachian-folk-songs-dies-at-92.html

Listening to her album with Doc Watson now.

Jake D'Arcy, who played Phil Menzies in Gregory's Girl and Pete the Jakey in Still Game:

http://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary-jake-d-arcy-actor-1-3791931

Belated RIP to ABBA bass player Rutger Gunnarsson: http://www.notreble.com/buzz/2015/05/09/in-memoriam-rutger-gunnarsson/

Tariq Aziz (don't know how much of a bad guy he was)

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33021771

Friends reporting the death of Nick Marsh, ex-Flesh For Lulu singer, from cancer.

Richard Johnson, whose credits include Fulci's Zombie Flesh Eaters, and who was once married to Kim Novak:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-33036755

Ronnie Gilbert of The Weavers

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/worldfolkandjazz/11657628/Ronnie-Gilbert-singer-with-the-Weavers-dies-aged-88.html

Vincent Bugliosi, who prosecuted Charles Manson and family, of cancer at 80. He also wrotethe book The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder.

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Vincent-Bugliosi-Dies-at-80-306583811.html

Hermann Zapf

Jean Gruault, screenwriter of Jules et Jim and many others by Rossellini, Resnais, Godard, Akerman, Rivette

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-jean-gruault-1924-2015

rip Bugliosi

Helter Skelter still a great, terrifying read.

Arturo Vega, the artistic director and historian for the Ramones (he created the famous Ramones seal)

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/arturo-vega-ramones-logo-designer-dead-at-65-20130610

RIP Arturo... as we said 2 years ago when he passed.

I thought that sounded familiar. Sorry, popped up on my Twitter feed today.

i randomly picked up bugliosi's book on the oj simpson trial a few months ago and sped through it in a day or two. it's an amazing read -- it's barely about the trial at all; it's more bugliosi using the subject as an excuse to rail against everything under the sun and go into (fascinating) detail about how to build a successful prosecution. should probably finally get around to helter skelter, i think i'm the last person left in america who hasn't read it.

Second to last; I bought a copy years ago but never got around to reading it. I was 12 when the murders happened, and one of the things I remember about the trial is that Manson referred to Bugliosi as "bug." (Plus the swastikas, uncharged Manson girls gathering around the courthouse, LIFE magazine cover).

i read it first when i was 13 - i was such a goob, i told everyone it wasnt even the "real" story and that the lawyer was just in the pocket of The Man, maaan

u_u

then i read "charlie: in his own words" and was like oh fuck yeah right he's BANANAS

:( at Jean Gruault

James Last
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g503fR3BvVk

i've never read Skelter because nearly all 'true crime' I've tried is too decadent and ultimately numbing in its ugliness for me to stick with. Manson is not compelling to me, just his warped followers, somewhat.