Rolling Obituary Thread: 2017

Fred Weintraub, owner of NYC's The Bitter End hotspot in the '60s

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/fred-weintraub-whose-bitter-end-club-showcased-comic-singing-talent-in-1960s-dies-at-88/2017/03/08/73ccd9fa-041c-11e7-b1e9-a05d3c21f7cf_story.html?utm_term=.91de108a9c33

Lynne Stewart, radical attorney

https://www.democracynow.org/2017/3/8/rip_lynne_stewart_peoples_lawyer_fmr

John Surtees, only person ever to be world motorcycle and Formula One champion.

http://bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/35126201

Joni Sledge

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/mar/12/joni-sledge-group-sister-sledge-dies-60

Robert James Waller, author of The Bridges of Madison County

http://variety.com/2017/film/obituaries-people-news/robert-james-waller-dead-bridges-of-madison-county-author-dies-1202006294/

http://music.blog.austin360.com/2017/03/12/evan-johns-60-left-his-mark-on-austin-music-as-a-firebrand-guitarist/

Hard-living guitarist who learned from bluesmen at Smithsonian folklife fest, Danny Gatton, punk rock and more and made his own guitar sounds in DC till 1984, and after that in Austin, Texas

Johns’ stint in the LeRoi Brothers led to his participation in Big Guitars From Texas, a local all-star “guitar army” whose 1985 album “Trash, Twang & Thunder” earned a Grammy nomination.

I grew up listening to this album on countless family cartrips. One of the great roots records of the 80s. RIP

John Lever, drummer for the Chameleons.

http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/2017/03/13/john-lever-chameleons-dies/

RIP, that's awful

HOLY shit, what terrible news.

Ed Whitlock

http://runningmagazine.ca/ed-whitlock-dies-at-86/

Ran a 2:54 marathon at age 73. Was still running sub 4 up until last year.

Tommy LiPuma, record producer, exec.

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/obituary/7721006/tommy-lipuma-obit

On Facebook seeing that Maxx Kidd, who ran late 70s /early 80s DC go-go music label TTED has died. Kidd was also a mid-70s era DC soul songwriter, and later played a role in go-go getting on Island Records and that failed movie Good to Go.

Dan Lucas
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/mar/14/dan-lucas-guardian-cricket-rugby-union-writer-dies?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

so far, this year seems heavy on ppl known to either US or UK nearly exclusively

(eg footie/rugby persons, Pofessor Irwin Corey)

The threshold for this thread has always been....niche

It is true I have no idea who most of these dead Americans are.

A lot of the time it doesn't matter if I haven't heard of them - I just like a good obituary.

Dan Lucas used to write for Drowned in Sound and Louder than War, in case you haven't read that far down.

i managed to completely miss his coverage despite reading a lot of the guardian sports section by not caring about those two sports but jesus sudden death at 31. so tragic.

also the whole point of this obit thread was to collect obituaries of people whose passings would not generate enough reaction to merit a separate thread, there is really no low bar beyond being involved in public life in some way

Jay Lynch, of Garbage Pail Kids (and apparently lots of other stuff I don't know) fame

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/12/arts/design/jay-lynch-underground-comics-creator-dies-at-72.html

http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2017/03/16/520453907/james-cotton-legend-of-the-blues-harmonica-dies-at-81

Derek Walcott, poet.

Damn - I met Walcott a couple of times and he was very charming. And I really like a bunch of his work.

Ron Drever, experimental physicist who confirmed the existence of gravitational waves: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/15/science/ron-drever-physicist-who-helped-confirm-einstein-theory-dies-at-85.html

really broken up over walcott.

Walcott? Oh wow, RIP.

Chuck Berry, 90

Interested in how much media attention this gets in the next couple of days. It won't be enough. (Checking CNN right now, and they have a slotted program on, so I realize they won't cut in, even if they should. But they don't even have anything on the news ticker at the bottom of the screen.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5ezeUM6c74

I love this one and plenty others, RIP.

xpost

CBC sent me a "Breaking News" notification on this, so it seems to rank as some degree of newsworthy.

CNN will pay the most minimal attention possible because there is no salacious angle (I'm assuming he didn't OD or anything like that).

Discussion going on here: Chuck Berry R.I.P.

I jumped the gun on CNN--it's the lead on their website, with the headline in pretty big type.

I know it seems weird to care about this, I just want to see it get the attention it deserves.

main page on the bbc and it was on their main late night bulletin

America's fixated on Moby Dick 24/7, so it wouldn't surprise me to see more reverential treatment in Britain.

What bizarre behaviour

Why would it be strange to want to see a man who didn't receive adequate recognition during his lifetime--he got a lot, granted, but he still was dwarfed by Presley--have his monumental importance properly recognized today? With lots of celebrities, you don't have to worry about that--they get ample. With Chuck Berry, I'm not sure that's a given.

rock is dead they say

Top story on BBC TV news. Quotes from Muck Jagger et al, interview with Eric Burdon.

Legendary comics artist Bernie Wrightson.

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2017/03/19/comic-legend-bernie-wrightson-passed-away/

Wow. Bernie was a real hero of mine, his aesthetic was really important to me growing up, helped show me the direction I really wanted to go in. Those dark dank places and sinewy crouching, twisting rotting bodies.

^ rippvmic

I don't know what that means.

vmic = very much in character

I don't know, using an RIP post to compliment to recently deceased on their depictions of 'dark dank places and sinewy crouching, twisting rotting bodies' seemed RAGish to me.

For anyone unfamiliar with Wrightson I recommend Creepy Presents Bernie Wrightson, his work on House Of Mystery and House Of Secrets, Swamp Thing: Dark Genesis, his Frankenstein book and Freak Show.

Jimmy Breslin

read a lotta Jimmy B in my youth, as we got the NY Daily News. Saw him on the street once or twice too; the quintessence of an oldschool tabloid muckraker.

Wrightson was a hugely important figure to me growing up. Berry even moreso. Painful 1-2 punch there.

Breslin would have been a good candidate for the "Celebrities You Didn't Know Were Still Alive" threads.

Great Twitter thread on Breslin:

https://twitter.com/dcnunnally/status/843506591836004356