re: Endless Sleep - The Obituary Thread

Wiki

NPR article

James (Jimmy) Edward Heath (October 25, 1926 – January 19, 2020).
Nicknamed Little Bird, was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, arranger and big band leader. He was the brother of bassist Percy Heath and drummer Albert Heath.

One of Heath's earliest big bands (1947-1948) in Philadelphia included John Coltrane, Benny Golson, Specs Wright, Cal Massey, Johnny Coles, Ray Bryant, and Nelson Boyd. Charlie Parker and Max Roach sat in on one occasion.

He briefly joined Miles Davis's group in 1959, replacing Coltrane, and also worked with Kenny Dorham and Gil Evans.[1][7] Heath recorded extensively as leader and sideman. During the 1960s, he frequently worked with Milt Jackson and Art Farmer.

At UNT-2018

Love and Understanding-full album

solo/interview

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I missed the Herman and Innes posts around New Year, Kaf.

What a cultural loss between the 2 of those, huh?

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With one big difference baw

Neil Innes never wore a rug



Out of character, I mean

LINK

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Chris Darrow (July 30, 1944 – January 15, 2020) was an American multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter. He was considered to be a pioneer of country rock music in the late-1960s and performed and recorded with numerous groups, including Kaleidoscope and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

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Kaleidoscope - "Taxim"

Chris Darrow - "Whipping Boy"

This one hits hard. Barefootin' *always* brings a smile.

Allee Willis, ‘September’ and ‘Friends’ Theme Songwriter, Dies at 72

Songwriter Allee Willis, famous for her work with Earth, Wind & Fire as well as the “Friends” theme and the “The Color Purple” Broadway song score, died Tuesday in Los Angeles. She was 72. The cause of death was cardiac arrest.

Prudence Fenton, the animator and producer who is described by a family friend as Willis’ “partner and soulmate,” was said to be “in total shock” over her best friend’s sudden death, which occurred just after 6 p.m.

Willis was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2018 for a catalog that included hits like EWF’s “September” and “Boogie Wonderland,” the Pointer Sisters’ “Neutron Dance,” the Pet Shop Boys’ and Dusty Springfield’s “What Have I Done to Deserve This?,” Maxine Nightingale’s “Lead Me On,” Patti LaBelle’s “Stir It Up” and the theme from “The Karate Kid,” “You’re the Best.”

“I, very thankfully, have a few songs that will not go away,” Willis told the New York Times, “but they’re schlepping along 900 others.”

Willis had been working with rapper Big Sean, at her home for the last few months. The intergenerational Detroit natives had met at Motown’s 60th anniversary celebration.

The Times profile tied to her Songwriters Hall of Fame induction called her “a queen of kitsch who made the whole world sing.”

Willis was legendary in L.A. for her outlandishly retro style sense, in her outfits but especially her home, the pink, legendarily kitchsy 1937 Streamline Moderne L.A. house known as “Willis Wonderland.” The home, which is itself a museum of pop culture history, was recently the setting of the photo shoot for Variety‘s Billie Eilish cover.

Among her many awards, Willis was a two-time Grammy winner — for “The Color Purple” as best musical theater album in 2016, and her contribution to the “Beverly Hills Cop” soundtrack three decades earlier — and was nominated for a Tony (for “The Color Purple”) and Emmy (for the “Friends” theme).

Her most fruitful collaboration, with Earth, Wind & Fire, began in 1978 after Patti LaBelle and Herbie Hancock recommended her to Verdine White, who, she said, called her up and said, “I want you to come write the next Earth, Wind & Fire album.” The next day, she said, she met up with him and co-wrote the enduring smash “September,” the first of several hits she co-wrote with or for the band, including “Boogie Wonderland.”

“I’m someone that absolutely loves writing very joyful music,” she told Songfacts in 2008. “And with everything else I’ve ever written, [“September” is] still that song that when people found out I’d written that, they just go, ‘Oh my God,’ and then tell me in some form how happy that song makes them every time they hear it. For me, that’s it. … I literally have never been to a wedding, a bar mitzvah, anything, where I have not heard that song play. So I know it’s carrying on and doing what it was meant to do.” As for the significance of the Sept. 21 date singled out in the song, she said there was none. “I would say the main lesson I learned from Earth, Wind & Fire, especially Maurice White, was never let a lyric get in the way of a groove.”


Of EWF, she added, “They were my favorite group, and remain so. I cowrote all but two of the songs on the next album, ‘I Am,’ which was the album that really crossed them over to a white audience.” The group’s African American fans were sometimes surprised to find that “September” and other iconic black hits were partly the creation of a “nice Jewish girl.”

Willis wrote “I’ll Be There for You” on assignment as a 60-second theme song for “Friends.” When the Rembrandts came on board, they wanted to expand it into a complete song, so contributed a bridge and a lyric for the second verse for the full-length version.

Paul Reubens and Allee WillisA&M GRAMMY PARTY February 24, 1982 Hollywood, CA Paul Reubens and date A&M GRAMMY PARTY Photo by Alan Berliner ® Berliner Studio / BEImages
CREDIT: ALAN BERLINER/BEI/SHUTTERSTOCK
“It was the last thing I ever thought would be a hit, the whitest song I ever wrote,” she told Songfacts. “I’m very, very grateful for it, and when they were promoting ‘The Color Purple,’ all of these newspaper reviews… I mean, here I’ve written for Earth, Wind & Fire, I’ve written with James Brown, and the only song they would ever mention that I wrote is this ‘Friends’ theme. Could any song prepare you less to write ‘The Color Purple’? But I actually loved it, because it’s that incongruity that I cherish the most in what I do.”

Willis (pictured above with Paul Reubens, aka Pee Wee Herman, at a Grammy party in 1982) grew up in Detroit, where, she told the New York Times, she would sit on the lawn of Motown’s headquarters and study what she heard coming through the walls. In the 1970s, she recorded her lone album, “Childstar,” which helped introduce her as a songwriter to other singers of the era.

Her vocation later in life was raconteur as much as songwriter. She was also a visual and social artist, painter, director, collector of odd artifacts and memorabilia, and a stand-up comedian and performance artist.

“I’m a serious party thrower,” she told the Times. “I’ll tell you, that’s my No. 1 skill. I always had a music career, an art career, set designer, film and video, technology. The parties really became the only place I could combine everything.”

Ivan Král—the composer, guitarist, and Patti Smith Group member—has died, as Reuters reports. He was 71 years old.

Král briefly played with Blondie in the mid-’70s before beginning his long tenure with Patti Smith Group. The composer, producer, and guitarist co-wrote many songs with Smith, most notably “Dancing Barefoot,” from the 1979 album Wave. Král also performed on and wrote for Smith’s debut album Horses (1975), Radio Ethiopia (1976), Easter (1978), and the live album Exodus (1994), recorded in the ’70s.

In addition to his work with Smith, Král wrote songs performed by Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Eastern Bloc, and others. In 1976, Král released a documentary of the local New York punk scene titled The Blank Generation. The film—directed by Král and Amos Poe—features footage of Blondie, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Talking Heads, Ramones, Wayne County, and more.

Král released a string of solo albums over 26 years, starting with 1992’s Native through 2018’s Colors.

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Gang of Four.

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"I Love a Man in Uniform" was often played by my during my KNWD days.

best known as the pedal steel player for first ian & sylvia, then the new riders of the purple sage

RIP

RIP David Roback..

Early player in the Paisley Underground... co-founder of Rain Parade/Opal/Mazzy Star