Obituary News

Percussionist Randy Kaye Dies at 61

Source: All About Jazz
August 17, 2008

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Jerry Wexler: Pioneer of Postwar Pop

Source: All About Jazz
August 16, 2008

American record producer and music executive helped to start Atlantic records and coined term 'rhythm and blues' Few of the pioneers of the postwar pop music industry more effectively exploited the art of connoisseurship than Jerry Wexler, the American record producer and music industry executive, who has died of congestive heart failure aged 91. It was his good luck that along with two similarly endowed members of that small band, the Turkish brothers Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun, he developed the ...

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Jerry Wexler, 91; Influential Producer Helped Shape R&b

Source: All About Jazz
August 16, 2008

Jerry Wexler, 91, the legendary producer and partner in Atlantic Records who coined the term “rhythm and blues," helped Aretha Franklin find her groove and freed Ray Charles from his early easy-listening style, died Aug. 15 at his home in Siesta Key, Fla. He had heart disease. Starting in the 1950s, Mr. Wexler introduced black and Southern musicians to mainstream music listeners, when few whites paid attention to what was called “race music." The powerful blend of gospel, blues and ...

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Jerry Wexler: 1917 - 2008

Source: All About Jazz
August 16, 2008

Jerry Wexler: January 10, 1917 - August 15, 2008

Jerry Wexler The legendary Gerald “Jerry" Wexler was a music journalist turned record producer who evolved into one of the most influential music men of all time. He was part of the foundation that would give the world R&B and is even coining the term “Rhythm & Blues" while working for Billboard magazine.

Wexler was paramount in the careers of Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Led Zeppelin, Wilson Pickett, Dusty Springfield and ...

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Jerry Wexler Famed Record Producer Dies at 91

Source: Michael Ricci
August 15, 2008

Jerry Wexler, a legendary record producer, worked with Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and other greats. He helped shape R&B music with influential recordings of Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and other greats, and later made key recordings with the likes of Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson.

Legendary record producer Jerry Wexler, who helped shape R&B music with influential recordings of Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and other greats, and later made key recordings with the likes of Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson, ...

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Remembering Whaling City Sound Guitarist Joe Beck

Source: Mixed Media Promotion
August 14, 2008

Whaling City Sound guitarist Joe Beck, one of the instrument's great contemporary practitioners, died last week of lung cancer at a hospice in Danbury, CT, a few days before his 63rd birthday. Throughout his career, Beck, who recorded frequently for the New Bedford-based WCS label, worked with some of the very biggest names in jazz and pop. In a career that spanned five decades, Beck accompanied an extraordinary range of giants: Duke Ellington and Gil Evans, Miles Davis, Paul Desmond, ...

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Don Helms Steel Guitarist for Hank Williams Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
August 14, 2008

Don Helms, was the last surviving member of Hank Williams' band, the Drifting Cowboys, and played at the country music titan's side for the better part of a decade, from 1943 until Williams' death at age 29 on the way to a New Year's Day 1953 performance in Canton, Ohio.

Don Helms, the steel guitarist whose aching instrumental cry gave musical voice to the anguish and the joy in virtually all the key recordings by country music titan Hank Williams, ...

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Alexander Slobodyanik Pianist Dead at 65

Source: Michael Ricci
August 13, 2008

Alexander Slobodyanik, a Ukrainian-born pianist who earned stardom in the former Soviet Union with his virtuosity and emotional interpretations of Romantic composers and who has been a concert pianist and in-demand teacher since moving to the United States in 1989, died on Sunday in New Jersey. He was 65 and lived in Morristown, N.J. Alexander Slobodyanik on his first visit to New York, in 1968. The cause was infectious meningitis, said Maya Pritsker, the cultural editor of Novoye Russkoye Slovo, ...

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