Obituary News

Merce Cunningham Dies at 90; Revolutionary Choreographer

Source: Michael Ricci
July 27, 2009

Merce Cunningham refused to interpret music, tell stories, depict characters or even to accept the idea of the choreographer as a kind of all-knowing god.

Cunningham challenged the conventions of how dances are performed, letting chance lead him to new possibilities. A former member of the Martha Graham Dance Company, he formed his own company in 1953.

Merce Cunningham, arguably the greatest, most pioneering and widely influential contemporary choreographer of the past half-century, has died. He was 90. A seminal ...

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Betty Allen Mezzo-Soprano and Music Teacher Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
July 27, 2009

Allen was one of the first black singers to reach prominence on the international opera stage. Later as a teacher and mentor she introduced classical music to children who, like her, grew up poor.

Betty Allen, one of the first African American singers to reach prominence on the international opera stage, died June 22 of complications from kidney disease at a hospital in Valhalla, N.Y. She was 82.

If contralto Marian Anderson in the 1930s and 1940s represented the first ...

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Earma Thompson, 1923-2009: Pianist Was a South Side Classic

Source: Michael Ricci
July 27, 2009

Musical career spanned more than half-century Chicago pianist Earma Thompson never really had a chance to become famous. Emerging as a professional in the early 1940s, when few female instrumentalists attained stardom in the male-dominated world of jazz, she focused instead on honing her craft and raising her family. But in a career spanning more than half a century -- most of it spent on the South Side -- she stood as a significant figure in the city's musical culture. ...

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John 'Marmaduke' Dawson Founder of New Riders of the Purple Sage Passes

Source: Michael Ricci
July 26, 2009

John “Marmaduke" Dawson had original tunes in his pocket and a guitar in his hand in 1969 when a buddy just learning to play pedal steel guitar often joined his weekly gig at the Underground, a Bay Area hofbrau house.

The friend was Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, and those sessions set the stage for the New Riders of the Purple Sage, a group they considered “the original psychedelic cowboy band."

Dawson, 64, died Tuesday of stomach cancer in ...

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Seattle Sound Engineer Fatally Shot as He Tried to Enter Wrong Motel Room

Source: Seattle Jazz Scene
July 21, 2009

More details emerged Sunday in the bizarre shooting death of renowned local sound engineer Tom Pfaeffle. Pfaeffle, 49, who had worked with music groups that include Nirvana, The Black Crowes and Heart, owned and operated The Tank, a recording studio adjacent to his home in the woods of Black Diamond. He also worked as an instructor at the Art Institute of Seattle, teaching audio production. He is survived by a wife and four children. Pfaeffle was killed Friday at the ...

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Beverly Roberts Singer with Dorsey Brothers Passes

Source: Michael Ricci
July 20, 2009

Beverly Roberts, 95, who co-starred with Humphrey Bogart in the 1936 film “Two Against the World," died July 13 at her home in Laguna Niguel of natural causes, her second cousin Christina Baker said.

Born May 19, 1914, in Brooklyn, N.Y., Roberts became a Warner Bros. contract player in 1935. She made her first film the next year with Al Jolson in the musical “The Singing Kid."

She starred as a female lumberjack in “God's Country and the Woman" in ...

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Dee Dee Bellson Singer, Daughter of Pearl Bailey and Louie Bellson

Source: Michael Ricci
July 20, 2009

Dee Dee Bellson, 49, the daughter of Broadway entertainer and singer Pearl Bailey and jazz drummer Louie Bellson who went on to craft her own singing career, died July 4 at her home in Charlottesville, Va., after a heart attack. Bailey and Louis Bellson married in London in 1952 and later adopted two children, Dee Dee and Tony. The family settled in Northridge. Dee Dee, who was born April 20, 1960, often traveled with her mother on tour. She began ...

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Gordon Waller 60's Pop Duo Peter and Gordon Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
July 20, 2009

Gordon Waller of the pop duo Peter and Gordon, who were part of the 1960s British Invasion and had a string of hits including several written by their friend Paul McCartney, has died. He was 64.

Waller died Friday at The William W. Backus Hospital in Norwich, Conn., nursing supervisor Nity Oris confirmed Monday. The duo's Web site says Waller, who lived in Ledyard, Conn., went into cardiac arrest Thursday night, and the state medical examiner's office lists his cause ...

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