Rolling Obituary Thread: 2021

DaJo is it. Sylvain actually wrote a bit of his early solo stuff.

Syl Sylvain, 1951-2021. The heart of the New York Dolls, responsible for the best of David Jo's solo material, and his own records were unfailingly soulful. Truth and Soul-that was the name of Syl’s fashion line and an apt description of his music too. Sleep well, baby doll. pic.twitter.com/7pWQ8jyFge

— Bob Mehr (@BobMehr) January 15, 2021

RIP

fuck. RiP Sylv

Prolific TV actor Peter Mark Richman (formerly Mark Richman)

John Reilly of US daytime TV fame.

TMZ reporting Phil Spector has died from Covid-19.

what a shame

Expect many awkward obituaries to come.

Exactly what I was thinking too...musically, huge.

Gosh. Up til death, possibly the most important, most influential horrible living musician?

da do done done

One of the funniest moments I've ever seen in a music doc--it's on YouTube, but in some altered mashup form--is when Spector talks about John Lennon calling him up in the early '70s about some film he just saw that used "Be My Baby," and that that was Spector's first encounter with "Skeezy."

RIP. In recent months keep thinking about that speech he gave inducting Doc Pomus into the RnRHoF.

He was a very important yet "problematic" figure, but unlike e.g. Michael Jackson, 99.9% of the audience didn't feel any personal connection to him. I mean I would assume that whatever Spector "fans" still exist in 2021 have held him at arm's length since even before the murder. That will make obituaries less awkward, the "twisted, increasingly isolated genius" is a familiar enough trope.

Great producer, awful excuse of a human being.

Who got to call Ronnie & tell her the good news

Thanks Dead Phil for reminding me that Starsailor existed for the first time in a decade.

He was an awful human being, but I am going to have Back To Mono on all afternoon today while I do work.

Fuck Phil Spector, but I'll keep the tunes. Which belong at least as much to the singers and songwriters as him anyway.

Larry Levine though

Him too.

There's a funny account in Dr. John's biography of playing on some Spector gigs in the early-mid '60s. He and the rest of the players were contemptuous of the whole thing, just banging on the same chords all at the same time.

I'd say that Jack Nitzsche deserves a great deal of the credit for the Wall of Sound, but he was also a pretty terrible human being.

The proximity of Spector and Sylvain Sylvain resonates.

Jason ‘Rowdy’ Cope, Guitarist for the Steel Woods, Dead at 42

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/jason-rowdy-cope-steel-woods-dead-obituary-1115742/

jazz pianist Junior Mance, RIP.

Ah, man, RIP. Been a long time coming though.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-55709000

Andy Gray, Scottish comedy actor maybe best known for City Lights.

Jean-Pierre Bacri (69), actor/writer/director

https://www.leparisien.fr/culture-loisirs/cinema/mort-de-l-acteur-jean-pierre-bacri-a-69-ans-18-01-2021-8419788.php

RIP

this one hurts

RIP Winfield Parker, 1960s Baltimore soul singer whose song "Mr. Clean" on Ru-jac Records became a Northern soul favorite. A retrospective Ru-jac compilation was issued a few years ago. He later acquired a new audience singing gospel, and also gained new fans for his soul music via gigs at Ponderosa Stomp, Dig Deeper, & MOJO WORKIN' Donostia R&B Weekend in Spain. He got Covid a few weeks ago, and didn't recover.

Hearing on Facebook that the great English improvising guitarist John Russell has just passed. RIP, and fuck cancer.

Saw him play lots of times when he ran that improv night in the Red Rose club, just up the road from where I live. His own stuff was not really my thing but he put on lots of interesting music, even if there were sometimes more people playing than watching and seemed like an affable chap. RIP John.

Baseball's Don Sutton

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/30743861/hall-fame-pitcher-don-sutton-dies-75

A tribute to John Russell by Evan Parker:

https://londonjazznews.com/2021/01/20/a-tribute-to-john-russell-1954-2021-by-evan-parker/

Important chapters of a biography would feature the Red Rose Club in Stoke Newington, walking distance from where John lived during that whole era, the pre-Vortex versions of Mopomoso.

Sub-editor sleeping on the job there, the Vortex was in Stoke Newington, the Red Rose Club in Finsbury Park, walking distance for me and John Russell it seems - cheap booze too.

Chances of londonjazznews.com having subeditors are rather slim I would say.

Mira Furlan, best known for Babylon 5:

pic.twitter.com/uVlatjUocZ

— Mira Furlan (@FurlanMira) January 22, 2021

one of my best friends named his daughter after her. he's very upset

i guess her illness wasn't widely known?

First I'd heard of it.

Straczynski's tribute

It is a night of great sadness, for our friend and comrade had gone down the road where we cannot reach her. But as with all things, we will catch up with her in time, and I believe she will have many stories to tell us, and many new roles to share with the universe. pic.twitter.com/HyQlqyC19v

— J. Michael Straczynski (@straczynski) January 22, 2021

very memorable in Lost too

I never watched Babylon 5, so I couldn't place her, but once I learned she was also on Lost I realized exactly who she was. R.I.P.

aww RIP, she was so good as Ambassador Delenn. about time I gave B5 another rewatch.

Hank Aaron

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

damn, rip hammerin' hank

Nathalie Delon

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210121-glamorous-french-star-nathalie-delon-dies-at-79

Her fling with Bobby Keyes was one of the more surprisingly amusing revelations from Keef's book.