Rolling Obituary Thread 2022

Seconded

Letizia Battaglia, Italian photojournalist who documented the Mafia’s crimes in Sicily

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/letizia-battaglia-pioneer-photographer-who-defied-mafia-dead-87-2022-04-14/

The 2019 documentary about her, Shooting the Mafia, is really good.

David Freel of the band Swell

https://m.facebook.com/#!/story.php?story_fbid=10158292404932540&id=17058642539&m_entstream_source=timeline&ref=bookmarks

Catherine Spaak. So great in many classic Italian films.

https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20220418_93211409

Harrison Birtwistle, 87.

David Freel is someone I've not thought about for years, but in the late 90s the Swell album TOO MANY DAYS WITHOUT THINKING and especially the 7" of (I KNOW) THE TRIP were vital, so RIP him seriously (in full awareness this will mean very little to very few)

Hip-hop DJ and producer Kay Slay, 55. He was around for pretty much the entire history of the genre; Stereogum has a good writeup.

Ah fuck seriously DJ Kay Slay? Goddammit, anyone want to come punch me in the head repeatedly? THIS IS A BAD DAY!

TOO MANY DAYS WITHOUT THINKING was really great, great ending too, never heard anything else by Swell.

ugh rip kay slay

Rick Turner, co-founder of Alembic who helped the Grateful Dead create their Wall of Sound and later built the Model 1 guitar, made famous by Lindsey Buckingham.

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=412731394191890&set=a.282746467190384

http://www.fleetwoodmac-uk.com/articles/Images/guitarplayer_03-2003/Lindsey_Interview_4-GW-042003.jpg

Hermann Nitsch, Viennese Actionist artist, 83.

Always enjoyed his organ drone stuff after seeing him at Glasgow University Chapel years ago. Intrigued and repulsed by the Aktionen, probably pretty much as intended.

RIP. Although I was hoping for some gore over Glasgow University, I remember it being a splendid ceremony at the chapel - and you took some good pics of the performance, Krakow!

I went to the museum in Naples in 2019 and watched the film of the Aktion in 2010 (which was quite a restrained one) with one of the volunteers who also took part. He told us some fairly benign anecdotes and described Nitsch as an Orson Welles-ian figure who sat making small hand gestures from a distance that were both impossible to interpret and, it seems, impossible to get wrong as his only attempt at direction.

Too bad. I just got an email this morning announcing a new recording.

RIP Jose Luis "el tosco" Cortes, director, & flautist of Cuban Timba band NG La Banda

http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2022/04/18/fallecio-el-tosco-director-de-la-orquesta-ng-la-banda/

Robert Morse - a.k.a. Bert Cooper from Mad Men along with hundreds of other roles
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/robert-morse-dead-mad-men-tony-winner-1235133283/

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

Oh no! I've been doing a re-watch and am nearly at the episode with that clip. RIP

CNN+.

Wish it was all of CNN.

RIP, heaven needed...well, nothing.

Cynthia Plaster Caster, 74

Romanian pianist Radu Lupu, 76. Wish Pomenitul were here. Maybe he saw one of Lupu’s rare live concerts.

Lupu’s Brahms and Schumann recital discs and his disc of Schubert’s D894 sonata are essential and obligatory IMO

cosign

Robert Morse was so good in Mad Men. My favourite moment was just before he died on the show, watching the moon landing: "Bra-vo." (Just past two minutes in the clip.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZidLxbMa54

Vintage Bluesman Guitar Shorty

https://www.guitarworld.com/news/guitar-shorty-obit

Never made it through a full episode of Mad Men but Robert Morse was great in The Loved One, which I rewatched recently on the big screen introduced by Fred Schneider and which holds up as one of the twisted dark comedies of the ‘60s that actually works.

A double bill of that and Lord Love-a-Duck would be a hell of a thing.

Not with Burt, but about him

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umSL5d91qPw

RIP Eric Chappell, writer of one of THE great sitcoms, Rising Damp. The four main characters were each fleshed out with laser insight into human minds, and intense understanding of the inherent drama and comedy of conversational language. Thank you, Eric, thank you so much. pic.twitter.com/rmg19ACueh

— Danny Kelly (@dannykellywords) April 23, 2022

RIP Eric ;_;

ok but "laser insight"

It's Danny Kelly, what do you expect?

words

Arno Hintjens, TC Matic singer (very big in Belgium)

Orrin Hatch, 88

inspiration for hatchie (which is what bob dole called him)

Sen. Orrin Hatch said the woman’s story accusing the Supreme Court nominee of sexual misconduct was “too contrived.” He believed she was lying after being coaxed by liberal special interests to derail the confirmation and was yearning for the spotlight.

“For all the expressions of wanting not to have publicity and to avoid publicity, I personally felt that she looked as though she enjoyed having the publicity today,” Hatch said on the Senate floor. “But, be that as it may, her story just does not add up.”

Re Styles, aka Shirley MacLeod, who first styled and then also became a vocalist for The Tubes in the 1970s. Also appeared in some notable films such as Xanadu.

https://deadline.com/2022/04/re-styles-dead-actress-costume-designer-stage-singer-with-tubes-was-72-obituary-1235008584/

Bert's encore, song & dance, word to Don:

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

Super Sky Point to Daryle Lamonica, the Raiders’ “Mad Bomber” who started 88 games in his career and lost just 16 of them despite retiring with a 49.5% career completion percentage. It was a different game then. A better game. #RIP pic.twitter.com/E7tkW1GDIX

— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) April 21, 2022

Re Styles, backing vocalist for The Tubes. Seeing them in 1976 is still the most sensory overload I have ever experienced.

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/the-tubes-re-styles-dead/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral&fbclid=IwAR3nwI5oiqUbVDkKRmB6rfl7wXKMvBjAI445HxjEv9W3JSfw7lugD_sSQmE

James Bama, American realist illustrator mainly working in scenes from the American West in later years but one time pulp illustrator of Argosy, amongst others and pulp novels including Doc Savage. Yet probably most famous for the box covers for Aurora horror model kits.

Dutch musician Henny Vrienten, 73.

https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2022/04/dutch-1980s-heart-throb-henny-vrienten-of-doe-maar-dies-aged-73/

Those Doc Savage covers really pulled me in (Bantam editions?) as a kid, even if the books aren't all that good. Like Tintin, Doc's sidekicks are generally more interesting than Doc himself.

last week: https://www.spin.com/2022/04/cynthia-plaster-caster-obit/

Andrew Woolfolk, Earth, Wind, and Fire’s Classic-Era Saxophonist, Dead at 71

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/andrew-woolfolk-earth-wind-and-fire-saxophone-player-dead-obituary-1342968/