Rolling Stone is reporting that pioneering rock guitarist Bo Diddley died this morning at age 79 in Florida because of heart failure. Diddley, born Elias Bates in 1928, had been recovering from a heart attack and stroke that he suffered last year. More »
Earle Hagen, Emmy winning composer, died at the age of 88 this weekend. Hagen’s name is not likely to be instantly recognized by most music fans, but as the composer of some of the most famous television themes in history, including the whistled intro to the Andy Griffith Show, his work is an… More »
Larry Levine, Phil Spector’s longtime engineer, died on his 80th birthday Thursday, according to a statement released by his family. Levine’s first collaboration with Spector was on the Crystals’ “She’s A Rebel,” and the two worked together on hits by the Righteous Brothers, Darlene Love, and Ike & Tina Turner. (He was there for those Leonard Cohen and Ramones albums, too.) Outside of Phil’s reach, Levine won a Grammy for his work with Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, and he had his fingers in several Eddie Cochran hits and the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds as well. Levine’s primary responsibility with Spector was to indulge the producer’s need for size and grandeur without letting the track collapse. Needless to say, he pulled it off more than a couple times.
Eddy Arnold, the debonair crooner who dominated the “countrypolitan” era of the country charts with smooth balladry and pop stylings, died yesterday at the age of 89 in Nashville.
E Street Band keyboardist/accordionist Danny Federici passed away Thursday after a three-year battle with melanoma. Federici, a New Jersey native, had played with Bruce Springsteen since the late 1960s. More »
Chris Gaffney passed away yesterday after a battle with liver cancer. Gaffney had been a major part of the roots-rock scene in California for years, playing in Dave Alvin’s post-Blasters group as well as recording several albums under his own name. More »
Robert “Syke Dyke” Reed, singer/keyboardist for Washington, D.C. go-go pioneers Trouble Funk, died Sunday night of pancreatic cancer. The band was most famous for their 1982 album, Drop The Bomb, and hits like “Pump Me Up,” “Hey Fellas,” and “Trouble Funk Express.” More »
Wayne “Frosty Freeze” Frost, a member of the Rock Steady Crew who was featured in both Wild Style and Style Wars and who helped bring breakdancing to the pop-cultural mainstream when he showed off his moves in Flashdance, died in New York City earlier this week of an undisclosed long illness. After the jump, an excerpt from a 1983 New York Times interview with Frost in which he talks about his moves.
Klaus Dinger, the often-imitated drummer for Krautrock band Neu!, died of heart failure on March 21; Billboard notes that Dinger’s death was not “widely publicized” until Neu!’s record label finally issued a statement today. More »
Sean LeVert, the brother of the late Gerald LeVert and the son of O’Jays lead singer Eddie LeVert, passed away after being transported from the Cuyahoga County Jail to a Cleveland-area hospital last night, according to reports. More »
