re: Endless Sleep - The Obituary Thread

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Tim Bachman, guitarist and co-founder of Canadian rock band Bachman-Turner Overdrive, has died at age 71. The news was announced by Bachman’s son, Ryder, on Friday, who wrote in a Facebook post, “My Dad passed this afternoon. Thank You Everyone for the kind words. Grateful I got to spend some time with him at the end. Grab yer loved ones and hug em close, ya never know how long you have.”

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Tim Bachman co-founded the group commonly referred to as BTO in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1973 with his brothers, singer/guitarist Randy Bachman and drummer Robin Bachman; the latter died in January of this year at age 69. Tim performed on the band’s eponymous album and their breakthrough second collection, Bachman-Turner Overdrive II, which dropped in December of that year and featured two of the band’s most beloved, hard-charging hits, “Let It Ride” and Billboard Hot 100 No. 12 hit “Takin’ Care of Business,” which Tim sang backing vocals on in addition to playing second lead guitar.

His run in the brotherly band would be short-lived, however, as he left in early 1974 shortly after the second album dropped, reportedly due to singer Randy’s strict rules prohibiting drugs, alcohol and premarital sex on the road. He was replaced by Blair Thornton, who played on the band’s third album, 1974’s Not Fragile, which included the No. 1 single “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” and “Roll on Down the Highway.”

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"Long Blonde Hair"

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Ed Ames, the youngest member of the popular 1950s singing group the Ames Brothers, who later became a successful actor in television and musical theater, has died. He was 95.

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Cynthia Weil, Storied Songwriter With Decades of Hits, Dead at 82

With her husband/creative partner Barry Mann, Weil wrote classics like "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'," "Somewhere Out There," and "We Gotta Get Out of This Place"

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Barry Mann, Weil’s husband and creative partner, said, “I’m a lucky man. I had two for one: my wife and one of the greatest songwriters in the world, my soul and inspiration.”

Weill and Mann were key figures in the Brill Building scene, helping to shape the sound of American pop and rock and roll in the early Sixties alongside other luminaries like Carole King, Burt Bacharach, and Neil Diamond. The two continued to find success, whether working together or with others, in subsequent decades, scoring hits with an array of artists in various genres through the 1990s. 

Born and raised in New York City, Weil found her talent for writing song lyrics early. She began her career working at Frank Loesser’s music publishing company before joining the Brill Building cohort after moving to Don Kirshner’s Alton Music. She and Mann married in 1961, the same year they wrote and notched their first hit together, “Bless You,” which crooner Tony Orlando took to Number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100.

With Weil writing the lyrics and Mann composing the music, the couple quickly became one of the Brill Building’s most reliable partnerships. Their tunes included the Crystals’ “Uptown,” Paul Petersen’s “My Dad,” and the Drifters’ “On Broadway” (which they wrote with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller). Their first Number One finally came in 1964 when they partnered with Phil Spector to pen the Righteous Brothers’ classic ballad, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’.”

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Astrud Gilberto, the Brazilian bossa nova singer best known for The Girl from Ipanema, has died aged 83. One of Brazil's biggest stars of the 1960s and 70s, she recorded 16 albums and worked with artists ranging from Quincy Jones to George Michael. Her version of The Girl From Ipanema sold more than five million copies and helped to popularise bossa nova.

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In 1963, she accompanied her husband to New York to help him as a studio translator while he cut an album with jazz legend Stan Getz. When the band came to record the English lyrics for The Girl From Ipanema, they needed a vocalist - and Gilberto shyly suggested she could handle the task. "Producer Creed Taylor said he wanted to get the song done right away and looked around the room," engineer Phil Ramone told Jazzwax in 2012. "Astrud volunteered, saying she could sing in English. Creed said, 'Great.' Astrud wasn't a professional singer, but she was the only victim sitting there that night." Although she had little time to prepare, Gilberto's detached but sultry vocals perfectly captured the vibe of a "tall and tan and young and lovely" girl who turns the heads of everyone she passes. The song was an instant hit and went on to win the Grammy Award for record of the year. Gilberto wasn't credited on the track (which was released under the name Stan Getz and João Gilberto) and she only received the standard $120 session fee for her performance. However, it was the springboard for a successful solo career, beginning with 1965's The Astrud Gilberto Album, on which she teamed up with incomparable jazz guitarist Antonio Carlos Jobim on a suite of Brazilian standards.

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Ed Ames
but he’ll be forever remembered for this

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RIP Mingo

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Sheldon Harnick, Famed ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ Lyricist, Dies at 99

Sheldon Harnick, the nimble lyricist who partnered with composer Jerry Bock to create the songs for some of Broadway’s greatest musicals, including Fiddler on the Roof, Fiorello! and She Loves Me, has died Friday. He was 99. 

Harnick died of natural causes at his apartment overlooking Central Park on the Upper West Side, spokesperson Sean Katz told The Hollywood Reporter.

Harnick, who credited actress Charlotte Rae for inspiring him to become a Broadway lyricist, had an uncanny knack of making it sound as if the singer were having a conversation with the audience. His lyrics for such tunes as “If I Were a Rich Man,” “Sunrise, Sunset,” “She Loves Me” and “Little Tin Box” were simple and straightforward yet deeply moving at the same time.

“A theater lyricist is a playwright who writes short plays in verse that have to be set to music,” Harnick said in a 2016 interview with the Los Angeles Times. “The important thing is that no matter how clever you are or how complicated the song is, you have to write something that is immediately comprehensible to an audience. They have to hear it and understand it as it is sung. You also have to write for character and for situation. Characters can’t sound like when they speak, they’re one person, and when they sing, they’re somebody else.”

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Bobby Van Osborne was born December 7, 1931 in Thousandsticks, Kentucky. From an early age the two brothers were performing music together. Bobby was drafted into the Marine Corps to serve in the Korean War, which put the brother duo on pause. But after Bobby’s return from the war with a Purple Heart, the two brothers went to work for the “King of Bluegrass” Jimmy Martin, and later moved to Wheeling, West Virginia to become mainstays on the Wheeling Jamboree, which after the Grand Ole Opry was the oldest country music radio show.

After the Osborne Brothers recorded some music successfully for Gateway Records, the Osborne Brothers were later signed to MGM Records, and by the late 50’s, they were considered one of the premier acts in all of bluegrass, known for their spellbinding musicianship, and Bobby’s Osborne’s tenor. By 1964 they had received an invitation to become members of the Grand Ole Opry—something that wasn’t easy to win in that era since as a bluegrass act you needed the blessing of Bill Monroe.

The sheer musicianship of the Osborne Brothers won them many fans well beyond the country and bluegrass realm. They helped make bluegrass cool, especially after they released “Rocky Top” on Christmas Day in 1967, and the song enjoyed ubiquitous popularity that is still around today. Of course like all bluegrass songs in country, “Rocky Top” struggled to become a “hit” on radio, only reaching #33. But among the populous in Tennessee and beyond, “Rocky Top” became synonymous with bluegrass and Tennessee. It is one of the most widely-known and beloved banjo songs in history, performed on the banjo by the late Sonny Osborne, and eventually became a Tennessee State song.

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