[Illustration by ALEX FINE] It wasn’t very long ago that we saw Porter Wagoner onstage at Madison Square Garden, singing, playing guitar, sparkling like a sapphire. We feel even luckier now having made the trip to NYC, and as always, are stunned how fast cancer can take a life. [via CITIZEN MOM] LA TIMES: Porter Wagoner, 80 PREVIOUSLY: Porter Wagoner + The White Stripes, Live At Madison Square Gardens PREVIOUSLY: The Wagonmaster’s Comin’ PORTER WAGONER & THE WILLIS BROTHERS: I’ll Fly Away
FINAL CURTAIN: Pavarotti Dead At 71
SO SET ‘EM UP, JOE: “Sinatra & Pavarotti” By Al Hirschfield NEW YORK TIMES: Luciano Pavarotti, the Italian singer whose ringing, pristine sound set a standard for operatic tenors of the postwar era, died early this morning at his home in Modena, in northern Italy. He was 71. “The Maestro fought a long, tough battle against the pancreatic cancer which eventually took his life,” said an e-mail statement that his manager sent to The Associated Press. MORE
RIP: Hilly Crystal, CBGB Founder, Dead At 75
BY SEWELL CHAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Hilly Kristal, who founded the punk-rock club CBGB and ran the legendary Bowery institution for nearly 33 years until it closed its doors last October, died on Tuesday at Cabrini Medical Center in Manhattan. He was 75. The Associated Press, citing Mr. Kristal’s son, Mark Dana Kristal, reported that the cause was lung cancer. “The club — its initials mean Country Bluegrass Blues and Other Music for Uplifting Gormandizers — was a hangout in a dire location,” Jon Pareles, The Times’s pop-music critic, wrote in October, when the Lower East Side club […]
BREAKING: Eddie Griffin, Ex-Roman Catholic High All-Star, Drives SUV Into Oncoming Freight Train
Eddie Griffin (May 30, 1982 — August 17, 2007) was an American professional basketball player. The Harris County Medical Examiner’s office has identified former Rockets power forward Eddie Griffin as the man who died when the SUV he was driving plowed into a moving train in southeast Houston last week. Officials said Griffin, 25, drove his Nissan SUV through a railroad crossing barrier, past flashing warning lights and into a moving train in the 5300 block of Lawndale about 1:30 a.m. on Aug. 17. The accident remains under investigation by Houston police. Griffin’s vehicle burst into flames on impact with […]
Max Roach & MLK: I Have A Dream
ASSOCIATED PRESS: NEW YORK — By his 30th birthday, Max Roach was already considered the greatest jazz drummer ever by his peers. By the time he died this week, the 83-year-old master percussionist was known worldwide as much more: innovator, activist, teacher, genius. Roach, whose rhythmic innovations and improvisations defined bebop jazz during a career marked by expectations defied and musical boundaries ignored, died late Wednesday in a Manhattan hospital after a long illness. No additional details were available, said Cem Kurosman, spokesman for Blue Note Records, where Roach played on seminal recordings with Thelonius Monk, Duke Ellington and Miles […]
HOLY COW: Phil Rizutto, RIP
Phil Rizzuto, the sure-handed Hall of Fame Yankees shortstop nicknamed The Scooter, who punctuated his extended Yankee life as a broadcaster with birthday wishes to nuns and exclamations of “Holy cow!” died today. He was 89. His death was confirmed by the Yankees. Rizzuto played for the Yankees from 1941 to 1956. His departure was abrupt. No longer willing to carry an aging, seldom-used infielder, the team cut him on Old-Timers’ Day. Soon after, he began calling Yankee games for WPIX-TV/Channel 11 and did not leave that role until 1996. Rizzuto played an integral role on the dynastic Yankees before […]
RIP: Merv Griffin Dead At 82
Comedian Pat Paulsen in blackface. This segment of The Merv Griffin Show, for obvious reasons, never aired. WASHINGTON POST: LOS ANGELES — Merv Griffin, the entertainer turned impresario who parlayed his “Jeopardy” and “Wheel of Fortune” game shows into a multimillion-dollar empire, has died. He was 82.
RIP: The Eyes Of Tammy Faye
Tammy Faye Baker Messner 1942-2007
RIP: Pulitzer-Winning Cartoonist Doug Marlette
NEW YORK TIMES OBIT: Doug Marlette, the Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist who also created “Kudzu,” the popular syndicated strip, died yesterday in a car accident in Mississippi. He was 57. A cartoonist who was unafraid to offend, Mr. Marlette was known for shocking his audiences with his pointed work. “His cartoons would make you stand up when you were reading the paper,” said Mike Peters, a friend and fellow cartoonist best known for the “Mother Goose & Grimm” comic strip. And offend he did. In 2002, when he drew a cartoon showing a man in Arab headdress driving a […]
DEATH OF A SAUSAGE KING: Bob Evans RIP
Bob Evans, whose quest for quality sausage to serve the truckers who filled his 12-stool, 24-hour-a-day steakhouse in southeast Ohio led to the creation of a restaurant chain that bears his name, died Thursday, Bob Evans Farms Inc. announced. He was 89. Evans complained that he could not get good sausage for the restaurant he started after World War II in Gallipolis in southeast Ohio. AP: Godspeed The Sausage King And All The Truckers Who Filled His 12-Stool
JERRY FALWELL, Agent Of Intolerance*, Is Dead
The Rev. Jerry Falwell, who founded the Moral Majority and built the religious right into a political force, died Tuesday shortly after being found unconscious in his office at Liberty University, a school executive said. He was 73.Ron Godwin, the university’s executive vice president, said Falwell, 73, was found unresponsive around 10:45 a.m. and taken to Lynchburg General Hospital. “CPR efforts were unsuccessful,” he said. Godwin said he was not sure what caused the collapse, but he said Falwell “has a history of heart challenges.” NPR: Jerry Falwell To Finally Meet Maker, Let The Great Reckoning Begin WIKIPEDIA: Falwell was […]
NPR FOR THE DEAD: David Halberstam RIP
FRESH AIR Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Halberstam died yesterday from injuries sustained in a car crash. He was 73. We revisit his Fresh Air interviews from 1985, from 1993, and from 1999. [Via Wikipedia] Thich Quang Duc (born Lam Van Tic in 1897 – June 11, 1963), was a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who burned himself to death at a busy Saigon intersection on June 11, 1963. His act of self-immolation, which was repeated by others, was witnessed by David Halberstam, a New York Times reporter, who wrote: I was to see that sight again, but once was enough. Flames were coming […]
‘ROSA PARKS Of GIRARD COLLEGE’ Dead At 83
BY GAYLE RONAN SIMS INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Marie Hicks [pictured, below], who in 1965-66 led thousands of pickets, including the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., around the wall that stood between two of her sons and entry into Girard College because they were black, died Thursday of complications of Parkinson’s disease at Willow Terrace in Germantown. She was 83 and lived in Germantown. The 10-foot wall and what it symbolized at Girard College inspired one of the most dramatic civil rights confrontations in Philadelphia history. The journey to Girard began in 1965, when Mrs. Hicks wanted two of her […]