the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually still alive

Jerry Allison, drummer for the Crickets, turns 83 in a few weeks.

Artist Frank Stella, 86. And he's selling NFTs (learned this thanks to KM).

María Elena Holly, Buddy Holly's widow: she'll turn 90 in December.

Not a lot of middle ground with that crew!

Relative of famous person Buddy Holly - his older brother Larry Holley, 96.

― Halfway there but for you, Friday, March 4, 2022 5:15 PM (five months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Died a month after I posted this. The Holl(e)y Curse strikes again!

Seeing reports from people who would know on FB that Jerry Allison of Buddy Holly & the Crickets has passed on.

― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, August 22, 2022 7:48 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

AND AGAIN

Well hell!

Hope Holiday, the woman who picks up Jack Lemmon in the bar on Christmas Eve in "The Apartment", 91.

abdullah ibrahim

thankfully

Sure this has been discussed before, but what's the oldest band whose members are all still with us? Asking because it just occurred to me that all of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young are alive.

The five original members of Manfred Mann, formed 1962, are all still alive.

The Seekers were another band formed in 1962 in Australia, whose original members were alive, until a few weeks ago.

Tempted to say the Shadows - the Marvin/Welch/Bennett lineup from 1961 onwards is still alive and was together through all the various reunions. No real settled bass player after Jet Harris (who died about 10 years ago) and certainly nobody who did TV spots etc.

John Rostill was their bass player - and an especially good one - from 1963 till they first split up in 1969. He died in 1973 though.

Scratch that idea then.

The thing is they're not actually that old, Marvin and Welch were born in 1941, they were teenagers when the recorded "Apache".

When I saw the start of that post in MacZing I thought it was going to be about Lee Marvin and Raquel Welch.

Doc Severinsen, who just played his last concert and retired at 95.

Doc is here?

The three original Grand Funk dudes are still around.

As far as I know all the original members of The Sonics - formed in 1960 - are still around, and until fairly recently they still toured. They're not all that famous but there was a flurry of interest back in the early 2000s because "Have Love Will Travel" was in an TV advert for VW. They were also on Nuggets.

I wrote an Amazon review in 2007! Yes I did. Do people still write Amazon reviews? They're all robo-generated now. What happened to that woman who reviewed every book, and it turned out she was just reselling them without even opening them? Hannie something. Harriet. Whatever.

Apparently I went to the trouble of sampling the start of "Psycho" to see how tightly the band came in. The song goes clattery drums -> "whoah..." -> "...BABY!" and the band come in on the first syllable of "...BABY!" because they were drilled like a military band. My review ended with "there is no Mellotron anywhere on the album". It got three upvotes. 2007. Not that long ago. Only fifteen years. That's nothing, really. I remember I was in a funk at the time but that Here Come the Sonics snapped me out of it because it's a really good album. Fifteen years. Imagine if I'd put £1,000 into shares in Apple every year since 2007. Fifteen years. Can't go back.

Is Aerosmith still all found members?

^founding

I think Ray Tabano was their rhythm guitarist before Brad Whitford, but if you leave that aside I believe you are correct.

The most recent touring Sonics were the sax player + ringers, although the other guys still would do hometown gigs.

The Wikipedia article on the Sonics doesn't mention if any of them have died, which doesn't mean they haven't because they're not exactly notable individuals.

There are people with Wikipedia open in the background purely so they can dive into the article and add a death date, so I imagine if anybody in The Sonics died it would appear in the article immediately. Right now I imagine several dozen Wikipedia editors have Clint Eastwood as a perma-background-tab so that they can beat everybody else.

I often wonder how you can win the "update the death of a celebrity on Wikipedia" game. Presumably you'd have to live in Los Angeles and have a police or ambulance scanner, plus an intimate familiarity with the addresses of major stars. Obviously a lightning edit would be reverted because it wouldn't have a source, but you'd still beat everybody else. If the rules require that you make the edit stick, you'd presumably have to be the first journalist with a verified Twitter account.

Is there a “the last famous person you were surprised to discover is dead” thread?

Anyway I think I must’ve heard that Lauren Berlant died when she did, but I’ve gone over a year now forgetting that she had

Surprised no-one has ever mentioned David Attenborough, now 96, in this thread.

That'll be because he's on the BBC so often no-one in the UK could possibly be surprised he's still alive.

Yeah, I'm sure he'll still be working on a new series about The Magic World of Lichens long after he's gone

It's a bit like someone being surprised the Queen is still alive... oh hold on though.

Jane FOnda

just for Attenborough's cold Malthusian English arrogance I hope the old cunt dies very soon

Jaye P. Morgan, 90.

Roger Whittaker, 86

I’m surprised he’s only 86! That’s first gen rocker/outlaw country age. Seems of an earlier generation.

It's not really on-topic, but I was surprised to find out that David Whittaker - the unrelated 8-bit chiptune composer - is 65! In fact he's a year younger than Rob Hubbard. It's odd to think of the man who made the buzzy multi-channel music for all those old Codemasters "simulator" games being of pensionable age, but there you are. In comparison Tim Follin was born in 1970.

That led me to this Reddit thread, which makes me feel old:
https://www.reddit.com/r/chiptunes/comments/xg2n5/what_are_some_great_chiptune_artists/

Why does it make me feel old? I have no idea who those people are. Who is Godinpants? Who is Saskrotch? Who is Shitbird? When I was young I could get by in middle-class society by knowing a little bit about Stereolab and having some friends who were clued in to Warp / Rephlex. Now it's futile. I'll never catch up.

sure you will, yr on ilx

Norman Podhoretz, 92.

Vocalist Helen Merrill (92), whose first album in 1954 was arranged and conducted by 21-year-old Quincy Jones (89)

Wow, good one!

Kenny Burrell (91)

Virginia McKenna of Born Free and A Town Like Alice fame, 91

I was sure Amanda Barrie had died a couple of years ago but proved wrong on her birthday this year.

Why the fuck is Reagan Interior Secretary and noted Beach Boys hater James G. Watt still alive?

heh, dude was only 45 when he resigned.

I assumed he was 100 years old back then!

Radio 2 DJ Pete Murray, 97.

Bob Barker, 98