Fiona Adams, one of the Beatles' most frequently used photographer, has died at the age of 84, BBC reports. Adams is best known for the memorable shot of the Fab Four jumping off a Brick Wall on London’s Euston Road, which famously adorned the cover of 1963’s ‘Twist And Shout’ – the group’s first UK EP. Adams also went on to photograph some of the 60s’ other defining icons too – including Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan.

The prolific singer, songwriter and instrumentalist Charlie Daniels died on Monday at the age of 83, in a Nashville hospital after a haemorrhagic stroke, Tennessean reports. His hit, 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia', is an American classic and won his only Grammy Award in 1979. Daniels was best known for his fiddle playing, as well as his outspoken brand of conservative patriotism. Country guitarist Brad Paisley wrote a lovely text about the violinist: "When you watched Charlie Daniels with that fiddle, the dust was flying off the strings. He would flip that bow around like it was freaking Harry Potter’s wand. Same with on the guitar when he would play. He just looked so intense. He was going into battle when he played and you would follow him anywhere. He was like a general up there".

The ecstasy of movie music
July 06, 2020

Ennio Morricone dies aged 91

Ennio Morricone, the Oscar-winning Italian film composer whose credits include the "spaghetti" Westerns that made Clint Eastwood a star, has died in Rome aged 91, the New York Times reports. He died in hospital having fractured his femur in a fall some days ago. Morricone scored more than 500 films over seven decades, including 'Once Upon a Time in America', 'The Untouchables', and 'Cinema Paradiso', and Quentin Tarantino's 'The Hateful Eight' which got him an Oscar. BBC calls him "the composer who changed the sound of cinema".

Bay Area rapper Young Curt (27) - born Curtis Denton Jr. - lost his life in a car accident this week, KTVU reports. The accident, "a rollover crash”, happened in Contra Costa County, California early Monday morning. All Hip Hop sums up all the higher profile tragedies that hit hip-hop this year: rapper Pop Smoke was murdered; Lexii Alijai and Chynna Rogers, two beautiful starlets in the twenties, died of alleged accidental drug overdoses; Jordan Groggs of the Injury Reserve, has died aged 32; 5th Ward Webbie, Tre Koast, Dee Dave, Big Booda, Nick Blixky, Mac P Dawg, Kj Ball, and just the other day, Huey add to the dark list.

The shadow of his compositions
July 01, 2020

Johnny Mandel - author of 'M*A*S*H' theme song - dies aged 92

American composer Johnny Mandel, the Oscar- and Grammy-winning songwriter of 'The Shadow of Your Smile', 'Emily' and the theme from 'M*A*S*H', has died aged 94. Mandel is considered one of the finest arrangers of the second half of the 20th century, providing elegant orchestral charts for Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Barbra Streisand, Michael Jackson, Tony Bennett, Natalie Cole, Hoagy Carmichael, and others.

Seal told a story about his classic 'Kiss From a Rose' which was a chart-flop, before director Joel Schumacher, who died on Monday, helped turn it into a hit, according to The Hollywood Reporter. When Seal released the song in 1994 "it went into the charts at No. 60 and dropped to No. 80-something the next week and that was the end of it. It was over". However, Schumacher liked it, used it in 'Batman Forever' in 1995. The song went on win the 1996 Grammy for record of the year, song of the year and best male pop vocal performance. Seal also sold 8 million albums. "Subsequently, kids thought I was Batman because the song was so big."

The songs that had helped to win the war
June 18, 2020

Vera Lynn, 'We'll Meet Again' singer, dies at 103

Dame Vera Lynn, the endearingly popular “Forces’ Sweetheart” who serenaded British troops abroad during World War II, has died at 103, BBC reports. During the war and long after, Lynn got crowds singing, smiling and crying with sentimental favorites such as 'We’ll Meet Again', and 'The White Cliffs of Dover'. She hosted a wildly popular BBC radio show during the war called 'Sincerely Yours' in which she sent messages to British troops abroad and performed the songs they requested. The half-hour program came on during the highly coveted slot following the Sunday night news. “Winston Churchill was my opening act”, she once said. The NME emphasizes "the most punk thing she ever did" - in 1985 she played an anti-heroin gig at London’s Crystal Palace Bowl with space-rockers and famed psychedelics fans Hawkwind.

Last weekend British jazz pianist and composer Keith Tippett has died, with Raspberry Fields' Piotr Orlov writing a lovely short text about the musician. Orlov sees him as "an indispensable connector between the post-psychedelic jazz-rock folks, the free-form players, the South African expats who were completely turning the sound of improvisation upside down, and the chaotic big-bands that were striking many different kinds of fancies". Tippet collaborated a lot - with Stan Tracey, Julie Tippetts (his wife, née Driscoll, King Crimson - "his career encompasses many many records and musical turns that are beyond dope, and have seemingly little to do with one another, except that the players on them strangely overlap, and Tippett is often near the center".

Sweet in 1973, Priest in the centre

Guardian's Alexis Petridis might not especially like Sweet, but he does see the influence British glam-rock band had: "British punk was staffed largely by people who had grown up in front of the glam-era TOTP, underlined when the Damned covered Ballroom Blitz. Moreover, they were a huge influence on 80s metal: Axl Rose claimed they were his favourite band, Def Leppard covered 'Hell Raiser' and 'Action', the nascent Mötley Crüe attempted to seek them out for career advice. You didn’t have to examine hair metal too hard to see the Sweet’s ghost, you just had to look at the photos: straight boys covered in makeup, possessed by a desire to shock, every one of them metaphorically Steve Priest’s offspring"

Jimmy Cobb, a percussionist and the last surviving member of Miles Davis’ 1959 'Kind of Blue' groundbreaking jazz album died Sunday at age 91. The album, released on Aug. 17, 1959, captured a moment when jazz was transforming from bebop to something newer, cooler and less structured, with NPR saying Cobb gave it its "pulse". It has sold more than 4 million copies and remains the best selling jazz album of all time. Cobb would also work with such artists as Dinah Washington, Pearl Bailey, Clark Terry, Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, Wynton Kelly and Stan Getz. He’d also release a number of albums on his own.

Guinean singer Mory Kante, an influential figure in African and world music, has died at the age of 70. Kante brought Guinean, and Mandingo, culture to the world. He was called an ambassador of Afro-Pop music. His song 'Yeke Yeke', released in the late ’80s, has been remixed and covered extensively.

He said good morning
May 16, 2020

Pretty Things frontman Phil May dies aged 75

Phil May, the frontman of The Pretty Things, has died aged 75 after suffering complications from emergency hip surgery, following a bicycle accident. The Pretty Things' 1968 album 'SF Sorrow' is credited as one of the first real rock opera concept albums. They were cited as an influence by a wide range of artists from David Bowie (wrote May’s phone number in his address book under the name “God”) to Jimi Hendrix to Kasabian. "They were ahead of their time, descending into chaotic, free-form, feedback-laden improvisation onstage years before the Velvet Underground or the early Pink Floyd made it their trademark" - Alexis Petridis wrote.

"Intelligent, inspirational, innovative, daring, artistic, awake, aware, beautiful, smart, loving and uplifting friend"
May 16, 2020

Beatles photographer Astrid Kirchherr dies aged 81

German photographer Astrid Kirchherr, whose early shots of The Beatles helped turn them into icons, has died aged 81, Zeit and NPR report. Kirchherr first came across the band when she visited a nightclub in her native Hamburg where they were playing. "My whole life changed in a couple of minutes. All I wanted was to be with them and to know them" - she later told Beatles biographer Bob Spitz. She took the first photo of the band in Hamburg in 1960, and is credited with helping develop their visual style. She began dating Stuart Sutcliffe, the original bassist in the band, and even cut his hair into the famous mop top style that the group came to be associated with. Kirchherr remained friends with the band after Sutcliffe's death and photographed them throughout the 1960s. Her death was announced by Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn, who said "her gift to the Beatles was immeasurable". Tributes are pouring in.

Soul legend Betty Wright passed away Sunday morning in her Miami home after losing her battle with cancer, NPR reports. Wright started singing at the age of two as a member of her family's gospel group, Echoes of Joy, she released her first solo album when she was just 14 years old, and she shot to fame at the age of 18 with her classic song 'Clean Up Woman'. A powerful, soulful vocalist, she was one of the first singers to use the "whistle register", later utilised by Mariah Carey and Ariana Grande. As a writer and producer, she also created hits for artists including Bob Marley, Gloria Estefan and Joss Stone. Tributes are pouring in...

Little Richard, one of the pioneers of the first wave of rock’n’roll, has died at age 87, Rolling Stone reports. At the height of his career he released a run of singles that were among the wildest and most flamboyant of the rock’n’roll era – 'Tutti Frutti', 'Long Tall Sally', 'Rip It Up', 'The Girl Can’t Help It', 'Lucille', 'Keep A-Knockin’' and 'Good Golly, Miss Molly'. He was also known for his outrageous performance style - eyes lined with mascara, and brightly coloured clothes.

Florian Schneider, co-founder of highly influential electronic pop group Kraftwerk, has died at the age of 73, Rolling Stone reports. The German quartet set the template for synthesiser music in the 1970s and 80s, and were the godfathers of kraurock. They achieved both musical innovation and commercial success, and inspired scores of artists across genres ranging from techno to hip-hop. The long list of artists to have been influenced by Kraftwerk included David Bowie, Depeche Mode, New Order, Daft Punk, Coldplay, Jay-Z, Dr Dre... Alexis Petridis is quite clear about Kraftwerk: "They may well be the single most influential band since the Beatles".

Jamaican singer Millie Small, most famous for her 1964 hit single 'My Boy Lollipop', has died at the age of 72 after suffering a stroke. 'My Boy Lollipop' made her an international star, it helped popularise ska music around the world, and remains one of the biggest-selling ska songs of all time, with more than seven million sales. "I would say she's the person who took ska international" Island Records founder Chris Blackwell told Jamaica Observer.

"When you think of the Stranglers’ most famous songs – from 'Peaches' and 'No More Heroes' to 'Waltzinblack' and 'Golden Brown' – you think first of Greenfield’s keyboards" - Alexis Petridis writes about Dave Greenfield, who died Sunday from coronavirus-related complications at age 71. Petridis defines Strangelrs as "never fashionable to start off with, they weren’t subject to fashion’s vagaries, instead building a huge, devoted cult following born out of being outsiders".

Country singer Cady Groves has died aged of 30 from “natural causes”, CNN reports. Groves is known for her pop country hits ‘This Little Girl’, 'Love Actually' and 'Forget You'. According to NME, her brothers Casey and Kelly died in 2007 and 2014 respectively, both aged 28 at the time of their deaths.

Old school hip hop icon, rapper, producer, dancer, and EPMD affiliate Stezo (Steve Williams) has passed away aged 51. Stezo first appeared on the hip-hop scene as a dancer for EMPD in their 1988 video for 'You Gots to Chill'. He eventually dropped his debut album, 'Crazy Noise' in 1989, which peaked at number 73 on the Billboard U.S. Tributes are coming in from fellow hip-hopers - Stretch Armstrong said “I never knew the brother, but he made some of the best records in one of the most competitive and innovative periods in hip-hop".

Pioneering Nigerian drummer Tony Allen, a co-founder of the afrobeat musical genre, died in Paris on Thursday aged 79 of a heart attack, NPR reports. Allen was the drummer and musical director of musician Fela Kuti's famous band Africa '70 in the 1960-70s. Kuti once said that "without Tony Allen, there would be no afrobeat". Allen later collaborated with a number of artists, and was the drummer in The Good, the Bad & the Queen, with Damon Albarn, Paul Simenon and Simon Tong.

"Bohannon tracks were huge in the Chicago clubs that gave birth to house music: Frankie Knuckles played a re-edit of Let’s Start the Dance at the Warehouse while Ron Hardy did the same with Caroline Crawford’s Bohannon-penned and produced Coming On Strong at the Music Box" - Alexis Petridis writes about Hamilton Bohannon, disco and Motown star, who died last week aged 78. "The list of house and techno artists who have sampled his work is huge: DJ Pierre, Cajmere, Underground Resistance, Danny Tenaglia, Dimitri From Paris. And house music gave Bohannon his biggest hit of all: Paul Johnson’s Get Get Down, a top 10 hit in 1999, was based on Bohannon’s 1978 track Me and the Gang". He was influential in hip-hop as well - Jay-Z, Mary J Blige, Public Enemy, the Ultramagnetic MCs and Pete Rock all sampled Bohannon's tracks.

Ronan O’Rahilly, the Irish founder of the notorious Radio Caroline that popularised pop music on British radio, has died aged 79. O'Rahilly started out as a manager in the 1960s, but had struggled to get his musicians noticed by the UK radio so he circumvented licensing laws by acquiring a former Danish passenger ferry, anchoring it in the North Sea off Felixstowe, and broadcasting from there. Radio Caroline quickly amassed a listenership of millions for its daytime pop-focused output. In 1967, parliament outlawed offshore radio stations, causing a number of Radio Caroline’s DJs moved to the newly created Radio 1, which had been influenced by the success of the former. Radio Caroline moved to Dutch waters, and continued broadcasting at sea until 1991. Alexis Petridis says that O'Rahilly, by championing bands ignored by the establishment, paved the way for the pirate DJs of soul, acid house and grime.

The lost and found...
April 18, 2020

Jazz great Henry Grimes dies at age 84

Grimes was a renowned bassist and skilled at many other instruments, playing with numerous musicians in the ’50s and ’60s, including Don Cherry, Sonny Rollins, Cecil Taylor, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan, Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, Benny Goodman, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Haynes, Lee Konitz, Steve Lacy, Charles Mingus, Sunny Murray, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, and McCoy Tyner. By the end of the ’60s, however, he found himself broke in Los Angeles with a busted bass, and completely disappeared from the music scene. Many thought he had died but in the early 2000s he was found still living in Los Angeles, in a rented room doing odd jobs to make ends meet. He was given a new bass by William Parker and reemerged with new passion staying busy as a musician from then on. WBGO has his story.

Lee Konitz, the celebrated jazz saxophonist and last surviving performer in Miles Davis’ 'Birth of the Cool' sessions, died Wednesday (April 15) due to complications with COVID-19, NPR reports. He was 92. He was mentored by the esteemed blind pianist Lennie Tristano, befriended his fellow saxophonist Charlie Parker, and worked under bandleaders such as Stan Kenton and Claude Thornhill. Most famously, he played with Davis’ nonet on their “Birth of the Cool” Capitol recordings, a landmark in post-bebop jazz.

Founder of legendary label Trax Records, Larry Sherman, has died of heart failure, with his family announcing that "he was of the Jewish faith and passed away on his holiday Passover", Exclaim reports. Sherman started the Trax imprint in Chicago in 1984 alongside Jesse Saunders, with it going on to become one of the world's most influential dance labels. Trax is also seen as the pioneer of acid house, releasing what's often considered the very first acid house release Phuture's 'Acid Tracks' (1987). Trax Records still exists to this day, run now by Rachel Cain (a.k.a. Screamin Rachael).

Lost prophet
April 09, 2020

Philadelphia rapper Chynna dead at 25

Philadelphia rapper Chynna Rogers, best known as Chynna, died on Wednesday, at age 25, Pitchfork reports. Chynna was open about the opiate addiction she struggled with in the wake of her music taking off, addressing her trouble on her 2016 mixtape 'Ninety'. She released her 'in case i die first' EP at the end of last year.

Diamond in the rough
April 08, 2020

John Prine dies from coronavirus at age 73

American folk singer John Prine has died at 73 following complications with the COVID-19 coronavirus, NPR reports. Prine worked as a mailman in Chicago in the 1960s when he began singing at open mic nights. His first review came courtesy of the legendary Roger Ebert, who happened to catch a show of his at the folk club the Fifth Peg. Prine's self-titled debut came out in 1971 on Atlantic Records after he was championed by actor and musician Kris Kristofferson, and his last album 'The Tree of Forgiveness' came out in 2018. In 2010, he was honored with a tribute album that featured artists like My Morning Jacket, the Avett Brothers, Conor Oberst, Drive-By Truckers, and Bon Iver covering his songs. He had a considerable following from musicians, including Roger Waters, Johnny Cash, and Bob Dylan. “Prine’s stuff is pure Proustian existentialism” - Dylan once said - “midwestern mind-trips to the nth degree. And he writes beautiful songs”. Tennessean published a big biography of the singer, and the NPR has a great essay about him. Watch his great performance at Tiny Desk below, and listen to his after-I'm-dead song he wrote to himself here.

Hal Willner, a music producer for Marianne Faithfull, Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, and Lucinda Williams, has died of complications related to the coronavirus, at age 64, CNN reports. He had also been involved with Saturday Night live, as the man behind the music skits, since 1980. But he remains perhaps best or most fondly remembered for the full-length salutes he helmed on borderless tribute albums to artists like Thelonious Monk and Kurt Weill, and the music of classic Disney films. New York Times described Willner as an author of "mixtapes of a city’s imagination".

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