Rolling Obituary Thread: 2020

upper left = comedian
bottom left = eye candy (people like Lee Meriweather)
bottom right = funny lady or kook

btw two misspellings in that screen shot - should be Nipsey and Fannie

and I misspelled Meriwether

Excellent analysis! Trying to remember where Neil Simon’s wife would sit.

Good catches both. Perhaps the mistakes can be attributed to the far future robot’s imperfect knowledge or memory of our advanced civilization.

Come post that on:People whose names are hard to spell

To answer my question: I see Elaine Joyce seated on the bottom right, ceding the bottom left seat to Dick Martin's wife, Dolly, she of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Hey, probably one for the other thread #MoreThanOneThread.

I've had Jon Gibson's "two solo pieces" LP on regular rotation for most of the year, fantastic record, RIP!

TV's Conchata Ferrell

https://deadline.com/2020/10/conchata-ferrell-dead-two-and-a-half-men-co-star-77-1234596750/

Ed Benguiat, American typographer, 92.

Rhonda Fleming, 97. Married six times!

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/oct/17/rhonda-fleming-queen-of-technicolor-in-the-1940s-and-50s-dies-aged-97

Just saw on fb that Bob Biggs, founder of Slash Records, has died.

"BOB BIGGS has died after a long illness. Bob founded the Los Angeles-based Slash Records label in 1978 with the "Lexicon Devil" 7" by The Germs. He stayed at the helm of Slash until its first dissolution in 1996, later followed by a brief re-emergence as BiggMassive Records in the early '00s..."

Rhonda Fleming, 97. Married six times!

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/oct/17/rhonda-fleming-queen-of-technicolor-in-the-1940s-and-50s-dies-aged-97🕸

What’s that one she is in with Arlene Dahl? Slightly Scarlet. I saw it once at The Film Forum– Arlene Dahl was there for a Q&A, I think, unless I am misremembering and that was one of her other films – and Geoffrey O’Brien told me it was one of his favorite movies, although I’ll bet he says the about every movie.

Country Singer-Songwriter Johnny Bush

Japanese trumpeter Toshinori Kondo, who worked with both Peter Brötzmann (in the Die Like A Dog quartet with William Parker and Hamid Drake) and DJ Krush, and with Bill Laswell, too, of course.

RIP. Never saw the Die Like a Dog quartet, but saw him multiple times with Brötzmann's Hairy Bones quartet that also included Massimo Pupillo out of Zu and Paal Nilssen-Love.

I got to see Die Like A Dog at Tonic once. Great band.

A longer article on Biggs/Slash Records.

https://variety.com/2020/music/news/bob-biggs-dead-slash-records-punk-founder-label-1234808805/

Jose Padilla ☹️

Oh, shit, at first I thought you meant the would-be bomber.

Died of the cancer I survived. Oof.

damn, that's sad news

Brutal obit:

Okay. This Ishmael Reed obituary for Stanley Crouch is a settling of scores like I've never seen in my life. https://t.co/3ZVggF95oV

— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) October 19, 2020

good to get the unrelated yellowback radio/blazing saddles plagiarism issue relitigated at the same time, thorough *and* thrifty

(ok i love reed and am not a crouch stan so go for it tbh)

wow that was a read

wow he hits a fair few bullseyes there, much better some of the bluster and bollox that came out at the time of his death.

Writin’ is fightin’

Some strong ‘Golden Cleric’ energy on show. Who’s the English ‘House Black’ he’s referring to, Gary Younge?

that would be very unwarranted if he was.

Crouch and his buddy Henry Louis Gates jr dismissing black underclass writers as "anti-Feminist" and then giving Harvey Weinstein a DuBois medal - that really is something!

Ugh, how to reconcile my dislike of Ishmael Reed with my dislike of Crouch...

younge is "an alfred knobler fellow at the nation institute" so i imagine it is him

i feel what animates that particular (anonymised) beef is "why not fund someone local, with a lifetime's near-at-hand grasp of US issues of race?" -- so a mix of petty envy and not unreasonable exasperation (in a lol the nation more-money-than-use how-are-THEY-the-arbiters sense)

semi-anonymised anyway -- younge is not called out by name can be identifed

spencer davis, 81

https://variety.com/2020/music/news/spencer-davis-gimme-some-lovin-dead-dies-1234810794

didn't realize he was *that* much older than Steve Winwood (9 yrs)

He was already an old hand on the club scene when he hired the Winwood Bros. Had thought it a little funny that Jimmy Miller got the wheels rolling for Traffic by having Dave Mason and Jim Capaldi do overdubs on "Gimme Some Lovin'" and "I'm A Man", their last two hits w/Steve (both of which still bang, BTW).

tony lewis of the outfield, 62

You know, I've heard their hit so many times but never seen so much as a picture of the band. Just watched the "Your Love" video for the first time, and he looks like he could be in Tears for Fears, which is not what I was expecting.

I can't make this claim for any of their other albums, but Play Deep is really fuckin good.

The guitarist died in 2014, so basically The Outfield is all gone now (survived by their on-again/off-again drummer).

Kevin O'Meara, musician and visual artist, 40. https://avantmusicnews.com/2020/10/21/rip-kevin-omeara/

A great guy and a great artist I only knew in passing.

re: Kevin, I saw some "MISSING" posts almost a week ago on social media... very sad news.

quibi, 6.5 months

The Amazing Randi

Wow! I had no idea he was around. Years ago he brought me onstage as an assistant.

Oh man, I had a lot of imaginary conversations with the amazing randi. RIP.

In official ILXspeak, I think it's apt to say:

BYE DERE

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/22/arts/dance/marge-champion-dead.html

Marge Champion, dancer/actor/choreographer, 101.

um, RIP Spencer Davis

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/20/arts/spencer-davis-dead.html

Drummer Viola Smith, 107.

https://i.imgur.com/feqhrRN.png

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/viola-smith-swing-eras-fastest-girl-drummer-in-the-world-dies-at-107/2020/10/23/770c3758-154a-11eb-bc10-40b25382f1be_story.html

JR White, a guy I met a few times, who was in somewhat popular mod-aughts surf punk band GIRLS

https://pitchfork.com/news/chet-jr-white-formerly-of-girls-dead-at-40/

The wonderful Jerry Jeff Walker, 78.

https://www.savingcountrymusic.com/country-songwriting-legend-jerry-jeff-walker-has-died/