Rolling Obituary Thread: 2017

Ah, RIP

Ralph Carney, 61, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist who played with Tin Huey, Tom Waits, Galaxie 500 and a shitload of others.

Louis Prima and Keely Smith were a fantastic act. Check out this clip, the only color footage I've ever seen:

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

SHINee singer Kim Jong-hyun, 27 :(

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/18/shinee-kim-jong-hyun-lead-singer-of-south-korean-boy-band-dies

Earle Hyman, Tony nominee best known as Russell Huxtable on The Cosby Show.

http://www.playbill.com/article/tony-nominee-earle-hyman-known-for-tvs-the-cosby-show-dies-at-91

posted that a couple weeks ago

Danny Mills, who played Crackers in Pink Flamingos, his only film, in January 2017.

RIP. [redacted inappropriate comment about the UK Danny Mills].

LOL

Steve Spear, guitarist of Art Attacks, died in a car crash last month aged 64.

Heather North, the voice of Daphne in Scooby Doo.

Daphne had lines?

jinkies

cardinal bernard f. law, pedophile protector

Hip-hop journalist/podcast host Combat Jack.

Oh shit, I knew he was ailing but didn't realize it was that dire. RIP.

This sucks, kinda fell off listening after Dallas Penn left the podcast but was one of the highlights of my week for a few years.

Clifford Irving, star of F for Fake:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/obituaries/clifford-irving-author-of-a-notorious-literary-hoax-dies-at-87.html

Peter Duffell, director of The House That Dripped Blood:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/dec/20/peter-duffell-obituary

adam alexander, mathematician and creator of alexander's star

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander%27s_Star

Dick Enberg

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/sd-sp-dick-enberg-death-obit-20171221-story.html

trombonist - composer Roswell Rudd, best known for his work with the New York Art Quartet and the Jazz Composers Orchestra.

He did so much tremendous work. I love the Archie Shepp albums he plays on, even the reunion album they did in the early 2000s (for which Rudd has always said there was insufficient rehearsal).

Aw I really liked Dick Enberg as a sports commentator. Very smooth with a slightly refined air that is uncommon today.

Just heard that the writer of the song I posted upthread "Woman's Gotta Have It" - Darryl Carter - has died. Carter wrote extensively with Bobby Womack, and worked with Hi, Stax and American Studios artists like Ann Peebles, Syl Johnson and even Sandy Posey.

Bruce McCandless II, the first human to float untethered in space (1984)

Everything I had ever heard about Dick Enberg was he was as nice and easy going off camera as he was on.

June Rowlands, Toronto's first female mayor.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/12/21/former-toronto-mayor-june-rowlands-dead-at-age-93.html

Silly to think of it now--not that it was any less silly then--but she landed in the middle of a controversy involving the Barenaked Ladies not too long after she took office.

Leon from Gogglebox

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-42466801

Oh no :(

American Sound bassist Mike Leech: According to Reggie Young, who posted on his FB page on Dec. 12, Mike Leech died on that date this year. It's also all over the FB page for American Studio. Got the news of Leech's passing from Andreas Werner, who works with the American guys. I still can't find an obit for Leech, though. James Redd, where did you get your info that Leech died in 2015?

Here's Mike Leech's obituary. He died on Dec. 12, 2017 in Nashville. Memorial service planned for Jan. 20.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/tennessean/obituary.aspx?n=michael-anthony-leech&pid=187600537

That was a different guy with the same name, Edd.

I figured he hadn’t passed that early as I am a big fan and thought I would have known.

Heather Menzies-Urich, one of the daughters in "The Sound of Music," but equally well-known by B-movie fans for Joe Dante's "Piranha."

rip Louisa :(

Johnny Bower:

http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/former-maple-leafs-goaltender-johnny-bower-dies/

Hard to convey how you can be in your mid-50s, barely pay attention to hockey since you were 12, and still have that name resonate a lot.

Television theme composer Dominic Frontiere
http://variety.com/2017/music/news/dominic-frontiere-dead-dies-composer-outer-limits-1202648539/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CtjhWhw2I8

Foggy Mountain Boys mandolinist Curly Seckler, one of the last living links to prewar country music:

Born John Ray Sechler in North Carolina, he used Curly Seckler as his stage name from the time he and his brothers performed as The Yodeling Rangers in the mid-1930s. A big break came in 1939 when Bill and Charlie Monroe split up as The Monroe Brothers, and Charlie hired Curly to sing the high part that Bill had previously done. Once people heard Seckler’s high, clear voice he found himself in wide demand, doing stints with a number of top groups like The Stanley Brothers, Jim & Jesse, Mac Wiseman, and The Sauceman Brothers.

For most fans, though, it was his time with Flatt & Scruggs that cemented Curly’s place in the bluegrass pantheon. From 1949 to 1962 he toured and recorded with Lester and Earl, contributing to some of the most iconic tracks in the history of our music.

http://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/2017/12/27/bluegrass-great-curly-seckler-dead/930007001/

Actress Rose Marie, 94.

http://missrosemarie.com/

Aw.

And she was just establishing her Twitter presence

shit, g'night Ro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzlZjuy5urU

Irv Weinstein, Buffalo news anchor:

http://www.wkbw.com/news/remembering-irv-weinstein-a-buffalo-broadcasting-legend

So ubiquitous growing up in Toronto in the '60s and '70s, I think even SCTV parodied him.

Weinstein was the role model for Eugene Levy's "Earl Camembert" character on SCTV and a Buffalo newscaster, played by Pat Sajak, in "Airplane II: The Sequel."

http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/news/2017/12/26/irv-weinstein-iconic-buffalo-broadcaster-has-died.html

Actually, I didn't know that--I thought Camembert, like Floyd/Lloyd Robertson, was based on a CBC or CTV reporter.

I do know there are fire trucks racing to either Tonawanda or Cheektowaga tonight as tribute.

Holly Anderson, poet whose work became the lyrics to Mission of Burma's song "Mica" (as well as others), at 62.

http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/2017/12/27/holly-anderson-misson-of-burma-lyrics/

mystery writer sue grafton of 'a is for alibi', 'b is for burglar' . . . 'y is for yesterday'

supposedly a z book was already in the can

No Z, reportedly

https://apnews.com/da95e9f22674419a8ee2fbe21736164d

Dan Talbot, founder of New Yorker Films and key distributor/exhibitor of foreign films for decades

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/5235-the-daily-remembering-dan-talbot