Rolling Obituary Thread: 2020

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/

Awww, RIP

There's a great Jerry Jeff Walker story that Steve Earle told (or I think actually told *me* when I talked to him). There was a period in the '70s that he was living in Nashville, still as a teen iirc, trying to break into the industry. He said that for whatever reason Walker had not only had his driver's license taken away, but was not allowed to get a new one, full stop. So every time Jerry Jeff Walker would come into town he'd call up Earle in the middle of the night to drive him around places and get into trouble. There was one night Earle got a late call to come pick up Walker, and after grabbing him Walker had him go pick up a buddy, who turned out to be Neil Young.

I went to a Chicago radio station early one morning in 1993 because there was a rumor Pete Townshend might show up to do an interview. I was hoping I could meet Pete. I shared an elevator with a man carrying a guitar so I introduced myself. It was Jerry Jeff Walker.

— Jason Narducy (@SplitSingleband) October 24, 2020

Kevin McCarra, football journalist. https://amp.theguardian.com/football/2020/oct/25/kevin-mccarra-a-pioneer-who-changed-football-journalism-former-guardian-football-correspondent-dies

Not many football writers have their own thread on ilx, he deserved his.

Frank Bough, bejumpered soothing grandma's TV host who at the age of FIFTY FIVE got sacked over a coke 'n' hookers newspaper sting operation.

RIP. I starred in an advert for the Multiple Sclerosis Society with Frank when I was three, back in the late 70s. My dad had MS, and the clip was supposed to open with me playing football with Frank, who hosted the footie at the time IIRC, and then Frank turns to camera and says, for full emotionally manipulative effect, "Stevie can't play football with his dad because his dad is in a wheelchair". But shortly after they'd set the cameras up and filmed some test footage of me just playing in the front garden, I had febrile convulsions, which I got a lot as a kid, and my mum had to race me to hospital. They carried on filming the advert with my dad, who spoke about the disease in a very posh telephone voice far removed from how he actually spoke, which we mercilessly teased him for every time he screened the Super 8 copy of the advert he got the production company to run off for him (it's up in my loft now). So I never got to play footie with Frank, but my dad said he was very nice (he never mentioned any cocaine shenanigans but he was a dark horse, my dad, and would probably have kept it quiet if he had).

Frank Bough, bejumpered soothing grandma's TV host who at the age of FIFTY FIVE got sacked over a coke 'n' hookers newspaper sting operation.

An obvious candidate for Up-the-Arse Corner there.... too soon?

Selina looks into it.

no article that i can see yet but numerous poets i know are reporting that diane di prima has died

Was coming here to post that. Let us heed her exhortation: 'ALL POWER/ TO JOY, which will remake the world.'

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-coal-murray/coal-baron-murray-a-trump-ally-who-fought-environmental-regulation-dead-at-80

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqt5iE1vhFw

Jerry Jeff Walker
https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/jerry-jeff-walker-remembered-by-lyle-lovett-lucinda-williams-dan-rather-and-many-many-others/

Ned already posted something earlier, I see.

Rest in peace to Outlaw Country legend Billy Joe Shaver, who has died at the age of 81. https://t.co/jS0fI5IOlH pic.twitter.com/n4eQCsshKF

— SiriusXM (@SIRIUSXM) October 28, 2020