Rolling Obituary Thread: 2020

Uriah Heep guy, Ken Hensley.

https://www.loudersound.com/news/ken-hensley-ex-uriah-heep-dead-at-75

TIL that hensley's three bands before UH were called:
• Head Machine
• Toe Fat
• Weed

off to spotify in his honour

He was in The Gods too.

Toe Fat LP cover is such a cursed image

the gods isn't funny in the context of that list tho

He was a busy boy pre-UH.

Once you got past the album covers, Toe Fat were pretty good.

What with Lee Kerslake dying the other month too, this leaves Mick Box as the only survivor of the 'classic' Heep line-up, depending on whether you think they had one. Anyway this is probably Ken's finest moment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_5CgNbo0ns

excellent herbert van thal pan horror vibe there

Toe Fat was actually an attempt to devise the most disgusting group name possible. They might have been successful, at least before punk.

Geoffrey Palmer, 93

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-41311326

awww RIP Geoffrey, he was a doctor and he wanted his sausages

I am an ‘merican but I remember that scene lol

Oh man, heartbroken. One of the greatest sitcom actors ever.

RIP Geoffrey :(

Balloon gone up ... Communists, Maoists, Trotskyists, neo-Trotskyists, crypto-Trotskyists, namby pamby probation officers etc will be in mourning.

can't believe Geoffrey has died for at least the third time in my memory

I used to often get him mixed up with Nigel Hawthorne who was brown-bread yonks ago

I still do sometimes!

they were both in madness of king george together, right?

Maybe that's why I confuse him with Geoffrey Rush (who was in the King's Speech).

pretty sure Palmer isn't in Madness of King George but haven't fact-checked

Oh man, farewell GP. Going to go on a lockdown Fairly Secret Army binge now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nxo0fS2VMM

he was per the article above
xpost

yeah i remember now, he has about 3 lines tho

John Fraser, British actor who was Alfred Lord Douglas in the Trial of Oscar Wilde, also in El Cid and Repulsion, and maybe best known to Brits of a certain age as The Monitor in the Doctor Who serial Logopolis.

Also, until maybe Stanley Baxter's, author of one of the most gossipy gay actor autobiographies.

But did he ever do an episode of Bosom Manor???

(xp) Never knew he was gay tbh.

Also, like Stanley Baxter, born in Glasgow!

Jonathan Sacks, former chief rabbi, 72.

Norm Crosby, malaprop king of US comedy

Candido, Cuban percussionist best known for the disco-era tracks "Jingo", "Dancin' & Prancin'" and "Thousand Finger Man", 99.

whoa, 99! amazing career (much more apparent from his bio on Spotify than his Wikipedia entry)

Octavian Nemescu, Romanian composer of classical music, 80. RIP.

RIP. Only heard one album of his stuff but it was good.

The 4-disc set Musique pour réveil is the one I've listened to the most, although I question the accuracy of its title. Much of it is quite sleepy and meditative.

His son, Cristian Nemescu, who died in a car crash in 2006, was a noted film director.

*Musique pour réveil 2, rather. There are 3 volumes in all, if memory serves.

Oh shit, I have a single of his.

Alex Trebek

Noo!

aw man, RIP

RIP. A great French Canadian.

wow he was hosting Jeopardy! two years longer than I've been alive. pretty sweet gig/life tbh

I love that Trebek basically insisted on working until he died. He obviously loved doing that show.

Only guy ever to make "game show host" seem like a noble pursuit.

well at least he outlasted connery

sad he slipped away in the middle of the joepardy tho

Canada had a second prominent death today: Howie Meeker. He was a Hockey Night in Canada regular when I used to watch as a kid. I think he had the same role as Don Cherry, intermission analysis, but of course none of Cherry's vitriol. He was most famous for his voice: excitable, high-pitched.

https://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/howie-meeker-death-hockey-night-in-canada-nhl-1.5794606

Have to admit, for a second there I was picturing Don Cherry the musician doing play by play for Hockey Canada, and it was... amusingly inconceivable.

Neneh Cherry used to cover curling up here for the CBC, but no.

Found this interesting from the obituary:

Dick Irvin, a fixture on HNIC for 33 years, told the Montreal Gazette in 2014 that Meeker was the first television analyst to break down the game and criticize players.

"'You can't do that!'" Irvin recalled Meeker saying. "'See what he did? That was wrong! That guy J.C. Tremblay should never have done that. Tim Horton made a mistake! Look at what he's doing there!'

Cosell was already doing that when Meeker moved over to the broadcast booth, but sounds like he was one of the first.

NYC's DJ Spinbad