Obituary News

Paul R. Jones Major Collector of African American Art Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
January 29, 2010

Jones acquired drawings, paintings, photos, sculptures and other works by black artists. 'My goal has been to incorporate African American art into American art,' he once said.

Paul Jones began buying pieces in the 1960s after noting that African American art was underrepresented in public galleries. In 2008, he donated about 1,700 pieces valued at $5 million to the University of Alabama, which established an art collection in his name.

Paul R. Jones, a collector of African American art who ...

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J.D. Salinger: A Gift of Words and Silence

Source: Michael Ricci
January 29, 2010

AN APPRECIATION In his greatest works, a clash between self-expression and self-effacement. “Don't ever tell anybody anything," J.D. Salinger wrote in the closing lines of “The Catcher in the Rye." “If you do, you start missing everybody."

For more than two decades now, I've thought about that ending as a piece of code. Not that Salinger, who died Wednesday at age 91 in Cornish, N.H., was an oracle, despite what his most dedicated followers -- those who hung ...

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J.D. Salinger, Reclusive Author of 'The Catcher in the Rye,' Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
January 28, 2010

J.D. Salinger, one of contemporary literature's most famous recluses, who created a lasting symbol of adolescent discontent in his 1951 novel “The Catcher in the Rye," has died. He was 91.

Salinger died of natural causes Wednesday at his home in Cornish, N.H., his son Matthew said in a statement released by the author's literary representative. Perhaps no other writer of so few works generated as much popular and critical interest as Salinger, who published one novel, three authorized collections ...

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Chief Sandrell Rivers: 1947-2010 - Florida Cultural Leader

Source: Michael Ricci
January 26, 2010

By Holly Spillane

The South Florida arts world lost a dynamic leader and passionate advocate of jazz and blues on the first morning of the new year. Chief Sandrell Rivers' efforts affected countless area residents over a lifetime of service and tireless promotion of arts, culture and education. Through her associations with the Sunshine Jazz Organization, Diaspora Arts Coalition, The Urban League of Greater Miami, Miami-Dade County, Africa Reconnect, Inc. and others, she remained committed to the assertion that the ...

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Jimmy Wyble Eclectic Guitarist for Benny Goodman and Red Norvo Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
January 25, 2010

Jimmy Wyble, 87, a guitarist of great range who played with country-western swing bandleader Bob Wills as well as with the Benny Goodman and Red Norvo jazz combos, died of heart failure Jan. 16 while under hospice care at his home in Altadena, according to his friend and fellow guitarist Larry Koonse.

James Otis Wyble was born Jan. 25, 1922, in Port Arthur, Texas. While working for a Houston radio station and playing guitar in western swing bands in the ...

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Larry 'L.A.' Johnson Dies at 62; Filmmaker Collaborated with Neil Young

Source: Michael Ricci
January 25, 2010

Johnson brought realism and whimsical surrealism to various film and multimedia projects with the rocker, from 1974's 'Journey Through the Past' to last year's 'Neil Young: Archives: Volume I.'

Larry “L.A." Johnson met Neil Young at Woodstock in 1969, where Johnson was working on the film of the concert. Their collaboration lasted more than 40 years. “He never lost the eye and ear of an original artist, one unafraid to listen to himself first," Young said in a statement. Johnson ...

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Gerald McCabe Founder of Folk Music Venue McCabe's Guitar Shop Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
January 22, 2010

The Santa Monica store played an important role in the evolution of Southern California's folk music community.

Gerald McCabe, a furniture designer whose passion for woodworking and love of music led to the creation of the Santa Monica folk music institution McCabes Guitar Shop, died Sunday in Eugene, Ore., two days after suffering a heart attack. He was 82. McCabe left his namesake operation before it became celebrated for the intimate concerts that have been held there for decades, but ...

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Kate McGarrigle Canadian Folk Singer and Songwriter Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
January 20, 2010

Kate McGarrigle, the Canadian singer and songwriter who, with her sister Anna, recorded a string of critically acclaimed albums of literate and wistfully romantic homespun songs and then became the proud matriarch of an extended folk-rock-pop musical family, died Monday after battling cancer in recent years. She was 63. McGarrigle died at her home in Montreal surrounded by Anna and their older sister, Jane, as well as Kate's children, singer-songwriters Rufus and Martha Wainwright. “There were a lot of people ...

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