Obituary News

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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Lee Young - Ellington and Goodman Drummer - LA Times Obituary

Source: Michael Ricci
August 13, 2008

Lee Young, 94; jazz drummer played with Ellington, Goodman Lee Young, performing in 1941, was the first African American hired as a staff musician at a Hollywood studio, signing on with Columbia Pictures in 1946. Lee Young, a jazz drummer who served as Nat King Cole's musical director for nearly a decade and broke barriers as the first African American hired for a staff position with a Hollywood studio orchestra, has died. He was 94. Young, brother of the great ...

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Concord Music Group's Statement on Isaac Hayes

Source: conqueroo
August 11, 2008

The Stax Records and Concord Music Group family lost a great friend on Sunday when soul music giant Isaac Hayes died suddenly at the age of 65.

To the world he was Black Moses, Ike The Ripper and, later, Chef from TV's South Park. To the rest of us who had the extraordinary opportunity to work with him in recent years, he was just Isaac. He was humble, unpretentious and refreshingly down-to-earth. Not bad for a man who delivered a ...

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Isaac Hayes Innovative Singer, Composer Changed Pop Music

Source: Michael Ricci
August 11, 2008

Los Angeles Times Indepth Obituary Isaac Hayes, the musician, composer and producer whose innovative sound changed the shape of pop music and whose shaved head, bejeweled outfits and regal demeanor embodied African American masculinity in the 1970s, has died. He was 65.

Family members found Hayes unresponsive Sunday afternoon next to a treadmill in a downstairs bedroom in his home just east of Memphis, Tenn., said Steve Shular, a spokesman for the Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Hayes' wife, ...

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Isaac Hayes, Deep-Voiced Soul Icon, is Dead at 65

Source: Michael Ricci
August 10, 2008

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP)--Isaac Hayes, the pioneering singer, songwriter and musician whose relentless “Theme From Shaft" won Academy and Grammy awards, died Sunday afternoon, the Shelby County Sheriff's Office said. He was 65. A family member found him unresponsive near a treadmill and he was pronounced dead an hour later at Baptist East Hospital in Memphis, according to the sheriff's office. The cause of death was not immediately known. In the early 1970s, Hayes laid the groundwork for disco, for what ...

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Singer Isaac Hayes Dead at 65

Source: All About Jazz
August 10, 2008

Soul singer and arranger Isaac Hayes, who won Grammy awards and an Oscar for the theme from the 1971 action film Shaft has died, sheriff's officials in Memphis, Tennessee, reported Sunday. Singer Issac Hayes seen performing in the U.K. last year. Hayes was found dead Sunday at age 65.

Relatives found Hayes, 65, unconscious in his home next to a still-running treadmill, said Steve Shular, a spokesman for the Shelby County Sheriff's Department.

Paramedics attempted to revive him and took ...

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