Obituary News

Herb Cohen Label Operator Introduced Mothers of Invention, Tom Waits

Source: All About Jazz
March 18, 2010

Herb Cohen, the tough, litigious manager and label operator who introduced such notables as the Mothers of Invention and Tom Waits during the '60s and '70s, died Tuesday of unknown causes in Napa, Calif. He was 77.

After beginning his professional career as an L.A. club booker and operator, Cohen branched into management in the mid-'60s. His biggest clients were Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention, the outre band that became a top attraction in venues on the Sunset Strip. After ...

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Fess Parker, Who Played Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
March 18, 2010

Fess Parker, whose star-making portrayal of frontiersman Davy Crockett on television in the mid-1950s made him a hero to millions of young baby boomers and spurred a nationwide run on coonskin caps, died Thursday. He was 85. Parker, who played another pioneer American hero on television's “Daniel Boone" in the 1960s before retiring from acting a decade later and becoming a successful Santa Barbara hotel developer and Santa Ynez Valley winery owner, died of complications from old age at his ...

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World Music DJ Charlie Gillett Dies

Source: All About Jazz
March 18, 2010

Pioneering DJ Charlie Gillett has died aged 68 after battling a long illness, it emerged today.

Best known as the discoverer of rockers Dire Straits and as a champion of world music, the broadcaster died in a London hospital yesterday, his family said. He contracted a disease of the autoimmune system, and suffered a heart attack last week.

Gillett, who was born in Morecambe, Lancs, stepped down from his regular slot on Radio 3's World on 3 for health reasons ...

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Alex Chilton Big Nashville Star Dies

Source: All About Jazz
March 18, 2010

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." ...

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Country Music Impresario Johnnie High Dead at 80

Source: All About Jazz
March 18, 2010

Johnnie High, a north Texas country music showman who gave such performers as LeAnn Rimes and Boxcar Willie their early exposure, has died at the age of 80. High's daughter, Luanne Dorman, says her father died Wednesday after battling heart disease. The impresario of “Johnnie High's Country Music Revue" began his Saturday show in 1974 after converting an old movie theater in Grapevine, a Dallas- Fort Worth suburb, into the Grapevine Opry. There, he gave Boxcar Willie and Rimes, then ...

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Actor Peter Graves Found Dead

Source: All About Jazz
March 15, 2010

Actor Peter Graves was found dead Sunday at his home in Pacific Palisades, according to law enforcement sources.

Graves, who stared in “Mission: Impossible," “Airplane!" and Billy Wilder's “Stalag 17"--apparently died of natural causes, the sources said.

Graves was 83, according to a biography on the website IMDB.com, was the younger brother of Gunsmoke's star James Arness.

In a Times story late last year, Graves said he initially turned down the role for “Airplane!" because he thought it was in ...

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Johnny Alf, a 'Father of Bossa Nova,' Dies at 80

Source: Michael Ricci
March 12, 2010

Johnny Alf, an influential Brazilian songwriter, pianist and singer whose delicately swinging music was a precursor to the bossa nova, died on March 4 in Santo Andre, Brazil, just outside Sao Paulo. He was 80 and lived in Sao Paulo. The cause was prostate cancer, said his manager, Nelson Valencia. Though he was not widely known outside Brazil and enjoyed mass popularity only intermittently in his homeland, Mr. Alf, born Alfredo Jose da Silva, is highly regarded among Brazilian musicians ...

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Mark Linkous Virtual One-Man Band Behind Sparklehorse

Source: Michael Ricci
March 10, 2010

Mark Linkous, a reclusive singer-songwriter who recorded as the virtual one-man band Sparklehorse, known for an often haunting and dreamy alternative-pop sound, committed suicide Saturday in Knoxville, Tenn. He was 47.

“It is with great sadness that we share the news that our dear friend and family member, Mark Linkous, took his own life," his family announced on his website. His publicist, Shelby Meade, confirmed that he had used a gun. Linkous had long struggled with depression and almost died ...

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