Obituary News

Morrissey, Punk Producer Jerry Finn Passes Away at 39

Source: All About Jazz
August 25, 2008

Record producer Jerry Finn passed away on Thursday after being taken off life support following a severe brain hemorrhage in July that left him in a coma. He was 39.

During his 15-year career, Finn worked with some of the biggest acts in music, mixing Green Day's Dookie and Insomniac and producing punk acts like Rancid, blink-182, AFI and the Alkaline Trio.

Most recently, in what has become his final production role, Finn worked with Morrissey on his solo album ...

Continue Reading...

Dorival Caymmi: Beloved Brazilian Songwriter

Source: Michael Ricci
August 25, 2008

Dorival Caymmi, a revered composer and singer of Brazilian popular song who influenced generations of bossa nova performers and whose first major hit helped launch the Hollywood career of entertainer Carmen Miranda, has died. He was 94. Caymmi died Aug. 16 at his home in Rio de Janeiro. He had kidney cancer and multiple organ failure. Caymmi's influence on Brazilian music cannot be overstated. Bossa nova pioneer Antonio Carlos Jobim once called him a “universal gen- ius" and his country's ...

Continue Reading...

Fred Crane Actor Who Wooed Scarlett in 'Gone with the Wind'

Source: Michael Ricci
August 25, 2008

He played Brent Tarleton in the 1939 film, Gome With The Wind. Crane later became an announcer on L.A. classical music station KFAC.

Fred Crane, a former longtime Los Angeles classical music radio announcer who achieved a slice of film immortality when he played one of the handsome Tarleton twins in the 1939 movie classic Gone With the Wind, has died. He was 90. Crane, who had been hospitalized for a few weeks with complications related to diabetes, died of ...

Continue Reading...

Sam Moore Reflects on Isaac Hayes, Jerry Wexler and a Life in Soul

Source: Michael Ricci
August 23, 2008

Last week was a terrible blow to anybody invested in the soul and R&B music of the late '60s. Between the deaths of Isaac Hayes and Atlantic Records executive Jerry Wexler, it seemed as if one of the greatest eras in American pop music began to fade.

Sam Moore (above, left, with Hayes), one half of the R&B duo Sam and Dave, is performing an Isaac Hayes tribute at Sunset Junction this weekend, and he knew the players of the ...

Continue Reading...

Dorival Caymmi Singer of Brazil Dies at 94

Source: Michael Ricci
August 22, 2008

Dorival Caymmi, a Brazilian singer and songwriter who helped lay the foundations of bossa nova, wrote Carmen Miranda's first hit and gave legendary voice to the romance of the beaches, fishing villages and bathing beauties of his native Bahia, died on Saturday at his home in Rio de Janeiro. He was 94. Dorival Caymmi helped lay the foundations of bossa nova. The cause was multiple organ failure, according to accounts in the Brazilian news media. Luiz Incio Lula da Silva, ...

Continue Reading...

Ronnie Drew Irish Folk Singer Founded the Dubliners Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
August 22, 2008

Ronnie Drew, the gravelly voiced folk singer and guitarist who founded the Irish group the Dubliners and also sang with the Pogues and other rock bands, died on Saturday in Dublin. He was 73. Mr. Drew, who had throat cancer, died in St. Vincent's Private Hospital, his family said in a statement. Known for his distinctive long white beard and deep voice, Mr. Drew and three other musicians -- Luke Kelly, Ciaran Bourke and Barney McKenna -- became the original ...

Continue Reading...

Leroi Moore: 1961-2008

Source: JamBase
August 21, 2008

LeRoi Moore: 1961 - 2008

LeRoi Moore We are sorry to report that LeRoi Moore, saxophonist and founding member of Dave Matthews Band, died unexpectedly Tuesday afternoon, August 19, 2008, at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles from sudden complications stemming from his June ATV accident on his farm near Charlottesville, Virginia. LeRoi had recently returned to his Los Angeles home to begin an intensive physical rehabilitation program.

Flecktones saxophonist Jeff Coffin has taken over for Moore throughout DMB's ...

Continue Reading...

Pervis Jackson Bass Singer for the Spinners Passes

Source: Michael Ricci
August 20, 2008

Pervis Jackson, 70, the man behind the deep, rolling bass voice in a string of 1970s R&B hits by The Spinners, died Monday morning at Detroit Sinai-Grace Hospital after being diagnosed last week with brain and liver cancer after feeling ill for several weeks, said his wife, Claudreen Jackson.

Joe B. Jordan native of the New Orleans area, he was one of the original five members of the group, which started out in the late 1950s singing doo-wop in Detroit. ...

Continue Reading...