MEMPHIS COMMERCIAL APPEAL: The legendary Memphis pop band Big Star has lost another member, as founding bassist Andy Hummel died Monday afternoon at his home in the Fort Worth, Texas, area after a long battle with cancer. He was 59. Hummel had been receiving treatment for the past couple of years, but recently went in for a hip operation and was informed that the cancer had spread and that his condition was terminal. “At that point,” said Hummel’s friend, Ardent Studios owner and Big Star producer John Fry, “Andy elected to accept hospice care and spent the last couple weeks […]
RIP: Harvey Pekar, Professional Everyman, Dead At 70
NEW YORK TIMES: Harvey Pekar, the irascible writer who spun the mundane details of his own life and the quotidian existences of his fellow Cleveland residents into comic-book narratives, and who showed that the comic-book panel could include everyday feelings of anxiety and disappointment as easily as it does the adventures of costumed heroes, has died, The Plain Dealer of Cleveland reported. He was 70. Mr. Pekar was best known for his on-again, off-again comics series “American Splendor,” whose title deliberately contrasted with the everyday people it documented (often the author himself). A wide range of illustrators contributed to its […]
ONE YEAR GONE: Remembering Mr. Wells
BRIAN MCMANUS: A photographer for NME, working in America, is given an assignment to meet Steven in Florida, who is already there to write about American metal band Deicide. “Contact Steven,” the office tells him. “He’ll give you the details.” He gets in touch, and Steven tells him to fly into Miami airport. Upon arriving, Steven greets him, tells him they need to get a rental car. The photographer asks why he hasn’t gotten one already. “I don’t have a fucking license,” Steven says, as though this is fairly common knowledge about him. The photographer rents the car, and they […]
Sausage King & Country Singer Jimmy Dean Dead At 81
NEW YORK TIMES: Mr. Dean followed two separate paths to celebrity. For the generations that came to television consciousness after 1970, Mr. Dean, who grew up on a farm in West Texas, was the face and the voice of an eponymous brand of breakfast sausage, a product of the Jimmy Dean Meat Company, which he started in 1969. In dozens of commercials that were broadcast for more than 30 years — Sara Lee bought the company in 1984 but kept Mr. Dean as a spokesman until 2003 — he represented the product as a wholesome family food, nutritious and delicious, […]
RIP: Ronnie James Dio, Elfin Metallurgist, Dead At 67
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Ronnie James Dio, the metal god who replaced Ozzy Osbourne in Black Sabbath and later piloted the bands Heaven & Hell and Dio, has died, according to his wife and manager. Dio announced last fall he was suffering from stomach cancer. He was being treated at a Houston hospital, according to his website. “My heart is broken, Ronnie passed away at 7:45 a.m,” said a statement by Wendy Dio posted Sunday on the site and confirmed by publicist Maureen O’Connor. Wendy Dio said that friends and family were able to say their goodbyes to her husband, and asked […]
RIP: Lena Horne Dead At 94
[Photo by JAZZ IN PHOTO] NEW YORK TIMES: Lena Horne, who was the first black performer to be signed to a long-term contract by a major Hollywood studio and who went on to achieve international fame as a singer, died on Sunday night at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York. She was 92 and lived in Manhattan. Ms. Horne might have become a major movie star, but she was born 50 years too early, and languished at MGM in the 1940s because of the color of her skin, although she was so light-skinned that, when she was a […]
IN MEMORIAM: Jack Rose Tribute Album Drops
THRILL JOCKEY: Jack Rose was a masterful musician and even greater friend and supporter of the underground music community. Honest Strings: A Tribute To The Life And Work Of Jack Rose is a massive and exceptional collection of heartfelt contributions from forty artists who were friends with Jack and/or inspired by his prodigious talents. Due to the running time in excess of six and a half hours, this collection is only available as a download. The downloaded file also features new original digital artwork from both Arik Roper and Alex Jako as well as a set of liner notes with […]
RIP: Sex Pistols Svengali Malcolm McLaren Dead At 64
BBC: Malcolm McLaren, the former manager of punk group the Sex Pistols, has died in New York, aged 64, his agent has said. McLaren, the ex-partner of designer Vivienne Westwood, was believed to have been diagnosed with cancer a while ago. He set up a clothes shop and label with Westwood on London’s King’s Road in the 1970s and was later a businessman and performer in his own right. His agent told the BBC McLaren passed away on Thursday morning. Spokesman Les Malloy said he expected McLaren’s body to be returned to the UK before it is buried in Highgate […]
RIP: Icon-Making Rock Photographer Jim Marshall
NEW YORK TIMES: Jim Marshall, a photographer who took some of the most famous images of rock and pop musicians, including Jimi Hendrix setting his guitar aflame at the Monterey International Pop Festival and Johnny Cash at San Quentin prison, died on Tuesday night in a hotel in New York. He was 74. Mr. Marshall was as well known for the extraordinary images that he captured as the extraordinary access that he had to some of the most famous names in music. He was a favored photographer of Hendrix, the Rolling Stones and Janis Joplin, and he was the only […]
RIP: Man’s Man Actor Robert Culp Dead At 79
LOS ANGELES TIMES: Robert Culp, the veteran actor best known for starring with Bill Cosby in the classic 1960s espionage-adventure series “I Spy” and for playing Bob in the 1969 movie “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice,” died Wednesday morning. He was 79. Culp fell and hit his head while taking a walk outside his Hollywood Hills home. He was found by a jogger who called 911 and was pronounced dead at Hollywood-Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles, said LAPD Lt. Bob Binder. An autopsy is pending. “My mind wants to flow into sadness, but I want to stay […]
RIP: Alex Chilton, Pop Auteur, Dead At 59
MEMPHIS COMMERCIAL APPEAL: Alex Chilton, the pop hitmaker, cult icon and Memphis rock iconoclast best known as a member of 1960s pop-soul act the Box Tops and the 1970s power-pop act Big Star, died Wednesday at a hospital in New Orleans. The singer, songwriter and guitarist was 59. “I’m crushed. We’re all just crushed,” said John Fry, owner of Memphis’ Ardent Studios and a longtime friend of Chilton’s. “This sudden death experience is never something that you’re prepared for. And yet it occurs.” Chilton and Big Star had been scheduled to play Saturday as part of the South by Southwest […]
Charlie Gillett, Godfather of World Music, Dead At 68
BBC: BBC World Service DJ Charlie Gillett has died after a long illness, aged 68. Known as a champion of world music, the Lancashire-born broadcaster passed away on Wednesday morning, his official website confirmed. The author and publisher had contracted a disease of the autoimmune system, and last week suffered a heart attack. Gillett is credited with discovering Dire Straits in 1976 after playing Sultans of Swing from their demo tape on his Radio London show Honky Tonk. ‘Sorely missed’ He also wrote an acclaimed history of rock’n’roll, The Sound of the City, in the 1970s. World Service director Peter […]
RIP: Actor Peter Graves Dead At 83
NEW YORK TIMES: Peter Graves, the cool spymaster of television’s “Mission: Impossible” and the dignified host of the “Biography” series, who successfully spoofed his own gravitas in the “Airplane!” movie farces, died on Sunday. He was 83. He died of a heart attack at his home in Pacific Palisades, Calif., said Fred Barman, his business manager. It was a testament to Mr. Graves’s earnest, unhammy ability to make fun of himself that after decades of playing square he-men and straitlaced authority figures, he was perhaps best known to younger audiences for a deadpan line in “Airplane!” (“Joey, do you like […]