Obituary News

Bobby Espinosa Keyboardist for '70s Latin Soul Band El Chicano Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
March 3, 2010

Bobby Espinosa, played keyboard for El Chicano. The East L.A. band had top-40 hits in the 1970s with “Viva Tirado" and “Tell Her She's Lovely." “El Chicano hit a groove that defined 'Latin soul' on the West Coast," said guitarist and producer Ry Cooder. Bobby Espinosa, a keyboard player who helped create the confluence of jazz, R&B and rock sounds for El Chicano, the East L.A. band that had top-40 hits in the 1970s with “Viva Tirado" and “Tell Her ...

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David Soyer (1923-2010)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
March 2, 2010

David Soyer, the founding cellist of the regal Guarneri String Quartet who also appeared on many jazz and pop record dates in the 1940s and 1950s, including Billie Holiday's Lady in Satin, died on February 25th at his home in New York. He was 87.

David was best known in the classical world as a sublime cellist whose robust bowing technique and warm vibrato could move listeners to feel melancholy, sympathy and elation depending on the piece of music played. ...

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Hall & Oates Bassist Tom Wolk Dies

Source: All About Jazz
March 2, 2010

Tom “T-Bone" Wolk, who performed with scores of musicians but was best known as the longtime bass player for the band led by pop-rock stars Daryl Hall and John Oates, has died. He was 58. Wolk died Sunday in New York, hours after completing a recording session with Hall, who was working on a solo album, the duo's manager, Jonathan Wolfson, said Monday. Wolfson said the cause of death was believed to be a heart attack. Wolk had been ...

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John Reed, Master of Gilbert and Sullivan's Patter Songs Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
March 1, 2010

John Reed, a silver-tongued Gilbert and Sullivan singer renowned for urbanity, verbal inanity, touching humanity, antic insanity and (a noteworthy trait in a world-famous player quite used to performing for crowned heads of state) a singular lack of theatrical vanity, died in Halifax, England, on Feb. 13, his 94th birthday.

From 1959 to 1979, Mr. Reed was the principal comedian of the DOyly Carte Opera Company, the London professional troupe founded in the 1870s to stage the operettas of Gilbert ...

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Osmond Son Commits Suicide by Jumping from Building

Source: All About Jazz
February 28, 2010

The teenage son of singer Marie Osmond killed himself by jumping from a building in downtown Los Angeles, celebrity news television program “Entertainment Tonight" reported on Saturday.

“ET" said Michael Blosil, 18, leapt from his apartment around 9 p.m. (0500 GMT) Friday after leaving a note saying he intended to kill himself due to a long battle with depression that made him feel as if he had no friends. The report on ET's website quotes Marie Osmond as saying, “My ...

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David Soyer Famed Guarneri Cellist Has Died

Source: All About Jazz
February 27, 2010

David Soyer, the founding cellist of the Guarneri String Quartet, died on Thursday at his apartment in New York, a day after his 87th birthday. The news comes from Frank Salomon, a co-administrator of the Marlboro Music Festival, with which Mr. Soyer had a long association.

Mr. Soyer, the violinists Arnold Steinhardt and John Dalley and the violist Michael Tree formed the Guarneri at Marlboro in 1964, and it became one of the premier quartets in the world. He retired ...

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Lee Freeman, Strawberry Alarm Clock Guitarist Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
February 25, 2010

Lee Freeman, 60, a member of the 1960s' band Strawberry Alarm Clock, famous for its flower-power anthem that became a No. 1 hit in 1967, died of cancer Feb. 14 at his home in the Bay Area. Freeman, who played rhythm guitar, sang and wrote lyrics, was an original member of the band, which was called Thee Sixpence when it was formed in 1966. None of the band members wanted to sing lead on “Incense and Peppermints," intended to be ...

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Kathryn Grayson Sing Star of the Golden Age of Hollywood 1922-2010

Source: Michael Ricci
February 21, 2010

Kathryn Grayson, the petite singer and actress whose operatic voice and campus-sweetheart beauty embodied the glamour of Hollywood movie musicals in the 1940s and 50s, died Wednesday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 88.

Ms. Grayson, a coloratura soprano, was best known for three film roles: the movie hopeful who attracts the attentions of two sailors (Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra) on shore leave in Hollywood in Anchors Aweigh (1945); Magnolia Hawks, the captains innocent daughter, who falls ...

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