Rolling Obituary Thread 2023

Oh man, one of my favorite singers. Hugely influential imo. R.I.P.

Aw. Corcovado = classic

Also, Reuben Wilson, soul-jazz keyboard maestro.

Tony McPhee, founder/leader of the terminally underappreciated Groundhogs.

I know he'd been ill for a decade and was more or less bedbound after a fall last year but a shock nonetheless. Will put on Split in his honour.

Aww, RIP Tony! Cherry Red still shits on 99% of all other rock music

RIP Tony - too weird for the blues crowd, not riffy enough for the hard rock crowd. Absolute guitar genius!

Only ever saw him once - he played with Current 93 on the same night where David Tibet coaxed Shirley Collins out of retirement. Crazy evening!

Oh no. RIP Tony :(

“Garden” is the jam imo

George Winston

aw

;_;

Wrestling legend the Iron Sheik, 81

RESPECT THE LEGEND FOREVER 😢 pic.twitter.com/Cr6CC9pXSO

— The Iron Sheik (@the_ironsheik) June 7, 2023

all-time great twitter account, rip

it was but I feel like there was almost no chance it was actually him. dude was awesome though, no doubt.

jack lee of the nerves, writer of "hangin' on the telephone" (and the original version is 100 times better than the blondie cover)

Pat Cooper, stand-up and a piece of work:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/07/arts/pat-cooper-dead.html

piece of work indeed

“The only way I can beat them, I made fun of them,” Mr. Cooper said in an interview for this obituary in 2014.

i guess i don't read that many obituaries -- is it normal to reveal when it was prepared? did cooper know the interview's purpose?

DESPARADO WHY DONT YOU COME TO YOUR SENSES YOU DUMB SON OF A BITCH

— The Iron Sheik (@the_ironsheik) June 6, 2023

Word to proud Pat Cooper, from what I involuntarily recall of previous interviews.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/jun/07/francoise-gilot-obituary

Francoise Gilot, artist/memoirist/mistress of Picasso, 101

Pat Robertson, and sure I’ll thank god he’s gone.

Well that's one more I outlived

rot in hell you old shitbag!!!

RIP, victims of AIDS, 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, COVID, and any other tragedy this pile of garbage exploited in the service of his repulsive agenda during his miserable lifetime.

Lol u dead Pat

P at
R obertson
I s
D
E ad
🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🎉

— Continuity Ted Leo Account (@tedleo) June 8, 2023

Shocked to read that George Winston’s December sold three million copies.

Probably a lot of them to people who didn't have that many other records.

SERENITY NOW!

George Winston is the tits, anyone who says otherwise has not accepted love into their hearts

Fun fact: I took a 15-year-old girl to see George Winston at the Kennedy Center in 1988. It was our first quasi-real "date" after being best friends for years. I thought this was like the classiest move possible, and would help me get further with this girl. I was somewhat mistaken.

Anyway Winston took a break from the piano to play Hawaiian slack-key guitar; I remember that being kind of interesting.

Yeah, he self-IDs as a folkie & trad jazz player, piano, guitar, harmonica too---as wiki sez:

Winston played in three styles: the melodic approach he developed that he called "rural folk piano"; stride piano, primarily inspired by Thomas "Fats" Waller and Teddy Wilson; and his primary interest, New Orleans R&B piano, influenced by James Booker, Professor Longhair, and Henry Butler.[3] While the majority of his recordings were in the folk piano style, Winston said he mostly played R&B piano.[2] Winston's musical style has frequently been labelled new age and sometimes classical, but Winston himself rejected both these labels as descriptive of his music.[1][2]

Also, he's responsible for this Professor Longhair reissue, as saluted by xgau:

Rock 'n' Roll Gumbo [Dancing Cat, 1985]
Everybody should own a Longhair album, and this exceptionally consistent 1974 session--which adds two tracks and a hotter piano mix to the sporadically available French version--won't disappoint. It's got Gatemouth Brown on guitar and fiddle and makes an excellent companion piece to Alligator's peakier Crawfish Fiesta, with which it shares a tough uptempo edge and zero songs, not even "Bald Head" or "Tipitina." It does, however, duplicate a lot of material on Atlantic's endlessly seductive double live Last Mardi Gras. So cogitat emptor, and kudos to none other than George Winston for making such reflection possible in the good old U.S.A. A-

Between you all and Matana Roberts, of all people, shouting him out on Twitter and IG, am I gonna have to go listen to George Winston now?

And Nels Cline too! Amazing story he told on FB.

Yes!

George was a terrific ragtime and slide guitarist, and he & I would improvise on acoustic guitars occasionally, he playing in open tunings. Eventually, he famously met Windham Hill Records guitarist and chief William Ackerman, something I had a lot to do with but which I will not go into here.

I meant to post on this thread earlier about Pat Robertson. I'm glad you're dead, you folksy hate gnome.

Should have died long ago

Good day for 80s assholes to be dying -- James Watt:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2023/06/08/james-watt-interior-secretary-dead/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPQnZmI2Sqw

I hope the Beach Boys cover "Bonzo Goes To Bitburg" in his honor.
https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/entertainment/music/how-rock-music-was-banned-then-brought-back-to-the-national-mall-the-beach-boys-james-watt-ronald-reagan/77-439ad6a5-1266-4529-8915-e15f6910ee7a

THE MAN CAN'T BUST OUR DAD ROCK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpL-eVpgJpY

Wasn't there in '83 a National Mall-adjacent protest concert by the Dead Kennedy's? I seem to recall some stage banter where Jello compared the Washington Monument to a giant Klansman.

I would have first guessed Sylvan Theater (a venerable venue adjacent to the Washington Monument) but you may be thinking of Rock Against Reagan, which was by the Reflecting Pool.

https://dcplislandora.wrlc.org/islandora/object/dcplislandora%3A37420

Good day for 80s assholes to be dying -- James Watt:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2023/06/08/james-watt-interior-secretary-dead/

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, June 8, 2023 7:43 PM

He has competition but it's worth noting he presaged Trump Cabinet assholes by 30 years -- the guy embodied conflict of interest.

Ted Kaczynski

https://apnews.com/article/ted-kaczynski-unabomber-dies-federal-prison-95fdd4f398fbfe20aaadf5d53a91dc26

Well, that was unexpected.

🥳

and i read it on the internet

suck it ted