Rolling Obituary Thread: 2020

I put on Midnight At The Movies and bawled my eyes out

O shit. The first album of his I heard, Midnight at the Movies, seemed like a well-negotiated rendezvous with somebody who brought a degree of balance, sanity, replenishment into his life, minus the drugs he'd run with since boyhood---and he was happy, he was, with a sense of wonder and nervous vibrancy, not letting himself run away---and the albums that soon followed (and preceded) could be a lot moodier, Harlem River Blues, for instance, but he kept finding new ways to make music, new turns---but then gradually they got wearier, more fragile--until The Saint of Lost Causes, released at the end of May, 2019, seemed to me like his best in a decade, a return and a leap forward, developing from some of the best bits, glimmers and sparks, of prev. 2010s efforts. RIP. I suspect old traveling companion Isbell will write some more songs about him.

Some of my best memories of Justin Townes Earle

1) upon finishing our first tour out with him in 2009, standing outside Gruene Hall in New Braunfels, TX saying our goodbyes, Justin hands me $400 (apart from our payout) and says "$100 for each of ya, I know it's hard out there"

— Samantha Crain (@sjcrain) August 24, 2020

Thanks for that. Her thread re memories of JTE is so good:

Some of my best memories of Justin Townes Earle

1) upon finishing our first tour out with him in 2009, standing outside Gruene Hall in New Braunfels, TX saying our goodbyes, Justin hands me $400 (apart from our payout) and says "$100 for each of ya, I know it's hard out there"

— Samantha Crain (@sjcrain) August 24, 2020

Just click on that paste and it'll show you the thread, or it did for me (sorry, never tried to paste a twitter link before).

(That's the same link VegemiteGirl posted?)

I only really know Midnight at the Movies, but I'll check out some of his other work for sure. RIP.

xpost Hi Andrew, the post is the same, but mine is a link to the whole thread.

Right, as is hers.

Damn.

Justin Townes Earle 1982-2020 pic.twitter.com/AzerqkUZa1

— Steve Earle (@SteveEarle) August 24, 2020

:(

Ooof.

Amanda Shires posted some old photos & a video clip of them on stage together back in their early days on her IG story saying “this is how I will remember you” and god it made me cry

Riley Gale, singer of Power Trip.

what the fuck.....RIP

Arnold Spielberg, father of Steven, at 103.
https://variety.com/2020/film/news/arnold-spielberg-dead-dies-steven-spielberg-father-1234748936/

And his mother lived to 97. Wow. Could be seeing a few more films from him yet.

ts dour stayers vs those impaptient early leavers that are walking through the car park (of hades) before f/t

Apollo/Skylab astronaut Jerry Carr
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/skylab-astronaut-gerald-jerry-carr-dies-at-88/

(aside: He grew up in Santa Ana and was referred to as “OC’s own astronaut” back in the Apollo-era. Met him a couple of times and he got us the invite to the Apollo 17 launch. If it wasn’t cancelled he would have landed on the moon in Apollo 19)

Oh my god, Mike Noga ex The Drones. He was only 43. https://www.abc.net.au/doublej/music-reads/music-news/mike-noga-died/12601758

Jeez. Those Drones records he was on are magnificent.

He was a local legend too, I used to see him at the after-school drama performances, just another Hobart dad suffering primary school plays. Whatever took him, it ain't fair. And as you say, magnificent records and a great touch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BQPOGD5f48

https://www.thewrap.com/joe-ruby-co-creator-scooby-doo-dead-dies-87/

Presumably he pronounced his surname ROOGY all his life.

Cathy Smith, inspiration for the Gordon Lightfoot song "Sundown" and who also shot up John Belushi with his final speedball
https://deadline.com/2020/08/cathy-smith-dead-obituary-john-belushi-drug-overdose-gordon-lightfoot-sundown-1203024794/

CHADWICK BOSEMAN

https://www.click2houston.com/entertainment/2020/08/29/black-panther-star-chadwick-boseman-dies-of-cancer-at-43/

Holy shit.

WHAT THE FUCK

WHAT? That's insane...

I can't believe it

Too young, too talented. Really tragic.

my friend literally just mentions this in passing the way you would say you had a bagel for lunch.

i thought she was kidding.

did he keep the cancer private? or did I miss that news story.

(certainly his right, just wondering)

I guess? he's in the most recent Spike Lee, right? Small role?

pic.twitter.com/aZ2JzDf5ai

— Chadwick Boseman (@chadwickboseman) August 29, 2020

holy fuck

man, idk how he pulled off filming movies during treatments.....

Thinking about all the stuff Chadwick Boseman made and did after a devastating diagnosis and in the midst of what must have been absolutely grueling treatments. And all that with no one outside his circle catching on at all. Truly an amazing talent. What a cruel, cruel loss. RIP

— Patrick Monahan (@pattymo) August 29, 2020

This is gutting

Apologies for the poor choice of words. It wasn't intended.

This is crazy

RIP

Fuck.

so fucking tragic. he was so unbelievably talented

Fuck, terrible.

I really can’t deal with this

<3

goddamn. this is fucking terrible news

Shocking news. Loved him as James Brown in Get on Up.

great as Thurgood Marshall as well

Chadwick Boseman dies. Donald Trump lives. I’ll take that as proof that there is no god.

I second JRN on Boseman’s performance in Get on Up, one of the better films in the sorry subgenre of rock biopics. R.I.P.

what a beautiful and talented man, this news is absolutely fucked.