1758 replies to this topic

[Moo & Oink]

I'm puttin' some Skynyrd on.

Why is it every time I see a reply by you, I assume you're going to mention Cleveland somewhere along the line?

[Rob Gordon]

I'm puttin' some Skynyrd on.

Why is it every time I see a reply by you, I assume you're going to mention Cleveland somewhere along the line?

Yeah, I hype and talk about the town. But that's where I'm from and I love the town. Not this time though.

[Badger]

John Martyn Hellraising folk musician and creator of the seminal album Solid Air Adam Sweeting The Guardian, Friday 30 January 2009 Ain't No Saint was the title of the four-CD restrospective of John Martyn's career, released to mark his 60th birthday last September. The name could hardly have been more apt, since Martyn, who died yesterday, became renowned for a career that lurched between triumph and disaster, both personal and musical. Drugs, drunken brawls and marital breakdown littered his CV, but then so did several of the most enduring and idiosyncratic albums made by a British artist in the last 40 years. Martyn was born Iain David McGeachy in New Malden, Surrey. His parents, Betty and Tommy, were professional light-operatic singers who worked the postwar variety circuit, singing Gilbert and Sullivan in period costume. They divorced when their son was five, and Tommy took the boy back to his native Scotland, where he proved academically gifted. However, he became fascinated by the music he heard in the Glasgow folk clubs, and felt galvanised towards a musical career by the likes of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and British guitarist Davey Graham. By 1967 he had moved back to London, living like a hobo and carrying only whatever he could cram into his guitar case. He changed his name to John Martyn on the advice of a booking agent and was snapped up by Island Records. His debut album, London Conversation, recorded in a few hours, had a somewhat conventional approach that did not reflect the true Martyn, who was soon introducing elements of jazz and experimental electronics into his music. "I didn't like that finger-in-the-ear stuff," he said later. "I've never been the morris dancing type. I'm a funky, not a folkie." His 1970 album Stormbringer! found him collaborating with his new wife, Beverley Kutner, and taking an innovative approach using phase-shifting and Echoplex devices with which he could create a one-man wall of sound. The Road to Ruin (1970) and Bless the Weather (1971) marked the start of Martyn's long musical relationship with jazz bassist Danny Thompson, and he was beginning to perfect a slurring, impressionistic vocal style that complemented the rich ambiguities of his music. He often cited the avant-garde saxophonist Pharoah Sanders as an inspiration. He hit a creative peak with 1973's Solid Air, which included May You Never - covered by Eric Clapton on Slowhand in 1977, earning Martyn the largest royalty cheque of his career. Happy to play the poet-ruffian, Martyn threw himself into American tours with Free and Traffic, where groupies and drug abuse were integral. He gave full vent to his vagabond ways while touring his Sunday's Child album in 1975, accompanied by Thompson and former Free guitarist Paul Kossoff. The atmosphere grew fraught when Kossoff broke a bottle over his head, and a Melody Maker journalist, Allan Jones, described seeing Martyn backstage "looking like he'd been drinking since the dawn of time". Dabblings with heroin and an American tour with Clapton took Martyn to the brink. He split up with Beverley and made the infamously bleak break-up album Grace and Danger (1980) with help from Phil Collins. He married his second wife, Annie Furlong, in 1983 but they later separated. Collins produced Martyn's next album, Glorious Fool (1981), but further plans were scuppered when a drunken Martyn broke several ribs by impaling himself on a fence. By now he had left Island for WEA, but their plans to expose him to a wider audience were doomed. By 1984 he was back with Island and recorded Sapphire and Piece by Piece, but Island dropped him again in 1988. The Apprentice (1990) and Cooltide (1991) appeared on Permanent Records. In 1996 he released And, on Go! Discs, also home to Portishead. Perhaps influenced by the latter, he explored the use of samples and triphop beats, and a Talvin Singh remix of the album track Sunshine's Better won plenty of radio play. Glasgow Walker (2000) featured more triphop adventures, and Martyn modified his approach further by writing on keyboard rather than guitar. In 2001 he featured on DJ/musician Sister Bliss's electronica track, Deliver Me. In 2006 the BBC screened the documentary Johnny Too Bad, which followed Martyn as he wrote and recorded the album On the Cobbles, and also covered the amputation of his right leg, made necessary by a burst cyst. He remained stoical, but his weight ballooned to 20 stone. He retreated to his farmhouse in Thomastown, Kilkenny, with his partner Theresa to recuperate. Martyn was greatly touched to be given a lifetime achievement award at the Radio 2 folk awards last year. Collins made the presentation, and Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones accompanied him on mandolin as he performed May You Never and Over the Hill. Speaking at the award ceremony, Martyn said: "I didn't set out to achieve anything. I was driven. I'm still driven. It wasn't like a great mission to save folk music." He was appointed OBE in the latest new year honours. He is survived by Theresa. • John Martyn (Iain David McGeachy), musician, born 11 September 1948; died 29 January 2009

[Tony]

Lukas Foss, a prolific and versatile composer who was also a respected pianist and conductor, died at his home in Manhattan on Sunday. He was 86, and also had a home in Bridgehampton, N.Y. His wife, Cornelia, announced his death. Although he was a German émigré, Mr. Foss was, from the start of his composing career, considered an important voice in the burgeoning world of American composition, along with Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Elliott Carter and Leonard Bernstein. And like Bernstein, he enthusiastically championed the works of his colleagues. But where Bernstein, in his compositions, melded jazz and theater music with a lush symphonic neo-Romanticism — or wrote theater music outright — Mr. Foss preferred to explore the byways of the avant-garde, focusing at different times on techniques from serialism and electronic music to Minimalism and improvisation. But as he moved from style to style, his voice remained distinctive, partly because he distrusted rules and never fully adhered to those of the approaches he adopted, and partly because a current of mercurial wit ran through his work.

[Moo & Oink]

Alto Saxophonist Hank Crawford has died at the age of 74. Crawford started out playing in the R&B bands of Ike Turner & BB King, among others. He eventually played with Ray Charles, alongside saxophonist David "Fathead" Newman, who coincidentally died just last week. Hank Crawford was known for playing a style of jazz called "soul-jazz."

[Rob Gordon]

Alto Saxophonist Hank Crawford has died at the age of 74. Crawford started out playing in the R&B bands of Ike Turner & BB King, among others. He eventually played with Ray Charles, alongside saxophonist David "Fathead" Newman, who coincidentally died just last week. Hank Crawford was known for playing a style of jazz called "soul-jazz."

Wow, Crawford and Newman. That is a coincidence.

[Tony]

The well-known former Chicago radio personality Eddie Schwartz has died. Schwartz started in radio as a teenager and became a radio legend in Chicago over several decades at several stations. Dave Baum, a former WBBM talk show host, was a colleague at WIND. He told WBBM Radio that Schwartz's whole life revolved around radio and a passion for entertaining and helping people. Known as Chicago Ed, Schwartz spent much of his time on the overnight airwaves. His radio career ended in 1995. The Lake County coroner, Dr. Richard Keller, told WBBM Schwartz died this morning of kidney and heart disease at a nursing home in Waukegan. He was 62 years old.

[Moo & Oink]

I wonder how Steve Dahl feels about that, he used to rag on him all the time.

[Tony]

Buffalo Springfield drummer Dewey Martin died January 31st of unknown causes. He was 68. Born Walter Milton Dwayne Midkiff, Martin cut his teeth in Nashville, playing with Patsy Kline, Roy Orbison and the Everly Brothers. He moved to L.A. in the mid-1960s and learned that a fledgling band was looking for a new drummer. The group’s guitarist, Neil Young, was highly impressed by Martin during his audition in 1966. “He was a sensitive drummer,” Young says in his biography Shakey. “You get harder, he hits harder. You pull back, he hits back. He can feel the music — you don’t have to tell him.” After his successful audition, Martin asked the group what their name was. “They went over and pulled out this sign, Buffalo Springfield,” Martin later recalled. “I said, ‘Great man, a steamroller. You got a heavy sound. Let’s go for it.’ ” During early Buffalo Springfield gigs Martin sang Wilson Pickett’s “In The Midnight Hour,” and on their second album he handled lead vocals on “Good Time Boy.” He also sang background vocals on their biggest hit “For What It’s Worth” – in addition to providing the LSD that he claimed inspired Stephen Stills to write the song. The notoriously volatile band folded in 1968 after just three albums, but Martin attempted to solider with new members on as the New Buffalo Springfield. After a nasty legal battle with his former bandmates he changed the name to New Buffalo – but that group fizzled by the end of 1969. Martin largely fell off the musical map afterward and worked as an auto mechanic, but he resurfaced alongside former Buffalo Springfield bassist Bruce Palmer in the mid-1980s as part of Buffalo Springfield Revisited. Joined by new members, the original rhythm section played Buffalo Springfield classics on the oldies circuit before finally hanging it up in the early 1990s. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.

[Tony]

James Whitmore, the veteran Tony and Emmy Award-winning actor who brought American icons Will Rogers, Harry Truman and Theodore Roosevelt to life in one-man shows, died today. He was 87. Whitmore died of lung cancer at his home in Malibu, said his son, Steve. He was diagnosed with the disease a week before Thanksgiving. "He was surrounded by what he considered to be the most important in his life, which was his family," Steve said. "He was loved and admired for his work as an actor, but he was loved and admired for being a father, a grandfather and a great-grandfather to all those who knew him and loved him." A stocky World War II Marine Corps veteran who bore a resemblance to actor Spencer Tracy and shared Tracy's down-to-earth quality, Whitmore earned early acclaim as an actor. In 1948, he won a Tony Award for outstanding performance by a newcomer in the role of an amusingly cynical Army Air Forces sergeant in the Broadway production of "Command Decision." Whitmore's Broadway success brought him to Hollywood, where he received an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor in his second movie, the hit 1949 World War II drama "Battleground," in which he played a tobacco-chewing, battle-weary Army sergeant. Supporting roles and occasional leads in some 50 movies followed over the next 50-plus years, including "The Asphalt Jungle," "Them!," "Kiss Me Kate," "Battle Cry," "Oklahoma!," "Black Like Me," "Planet of the Apes," "Tora! Tora! Tora!," "The Serpent's Egg," "Nuts," "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Majestic." A frequent guest actor on television, Whitmore also starred in three series: the 1960-62 legal drama "The Law and Mr. Jones"; the 1969 detective drama "My Friend Tony"; and the 1972-74 hospital sit-com "Temperatures Rising" (although he left after a year, he later said, "because it was just a series of jokes"). In 2000, Whitmore won an Emmy Award as outstanding guest actor in a drama series for "The Practice," and he received a 2003 Emmy nomination in the same category for "Mister Sterling." An avid flower and vegetable gardener, Whitmore also was known to TV viewers as the longtime commercial pitchman for Miracle-Gro garden products. As an actor, he once said, the income from doing commercials "gives you the latitude so you don't have to worry about having your kids take care of you." Whitmore often said he found acting in films and television boring because of the long waits between scenes; his passion was for the theater, and he continued to act on stage throughout his long career. "I've been very, very lucky," he said in a 2003 interview with the Nashville Tennessean. "The stage is human beings sharing something together -- flesh and blood together -- and the others are mechanical and shadows on the screen." Although he starred in productions of plays such as "Our Town," "Inherit the Wind" and "Death of a Salesman," Whitmore was best known for his three one-man shows: as Truman in "Give 'em Hell, Harry!," as Roosevelt in "Bully" and as Rogers in "Will Rogers' U.S.A." The 1975 film of his performance in "Give 'em Hell, Harry!" earned Whitmore a best actor Oscar nomination. But the one-man-show character he said he "always felt most comfortable with" was Rogers. "He was wise with a sense of humor, and that's an unbeatable combination," Whitmore told the Manchester, N.H., Union Leader in 2003. He was initially resistant to the idea of playing the gum-chewing, lariat-twirling humorist -- his first one-man show -- when adapter-director Paul Shyre brought "Will Rogers' U.S.A." to him in 1969. "I didn't think I could conceivably carry an evening by myself. I had difficulty holding the attention of my family," Whitmore recalled in a 1995 interview with The Times. But any qualms he had disappeared when the show premieredin a small theater in Webster Groves, Mo., in January 1970. I realized immediately that I was in the presence of an extraordinary man," Whitmore told The Times. "I didn't realize that until I heard the response of other human beings to him." Whitmore ultimately had about eight hours of Rogers' various comments about the topics of the day memorized, changing the show each time he did it. "I tried to use whatever seemed to be of interest to the folks in the audience that day," he told the Tulsa World in 2001. "I took the news from today's newspaper but didn't change what Will Rogers said. It's amazing how little things have changed since Will was about." Whitmore completed 30 years of on-and-off touring as Rogers at Ford's Theatre in Washington in 2000, and his costume is now housed in the Smithsonian Institution. Born in White Plains, N.Y., on Oct. 1, 1921, Whitmore later moved to Buffalo, N.Y., where he attended public schools until his senior year of high school, when he attended the Choate School in Wallingford, Conn., on a football scholarship. A pre-law major on an athletic scholarship at Yale University, he became a protege of one of the assistant football coaches -- future U.S. President Gerald R. Ford -- but had to quit playing after suffering two knee injuries. While at Yale, Whitmore helped launch the campus radio station. "My scholarships dried up when my knees went," he told the Tennessean in 2003. "I was able to stay in school with a nightly sports show, 'Jim Whitmore Speaks,' with interviews and sports news. I made 40 bucks a week. "Yale was all male then, except for the gals in graduate school. I was going with one of them, and she was doing plays. They pressed me into service, and I kind of liked it." With World War II underway, Whitmore joined the Marines during his senior year in 1942 and served in the South Pacific. After his discharge in 1946, he returned to the Pacific with the USO to entertain the troops. Moving to New York City, he used the GI Bill to study acting at the American Theatre Wing. In 1947, he married his first wife, Nancy Mygatt, with whom he had three children. They were divorced after 24 years. After Whitmore's second marriage in the 1970s, to actress Audra Lindley, he and his first wife were remarried but divorced after two years Whitmore, who was an early student at the Actors Studio in New York in the late '40s, taught an acting workshop after moving to Hollywood. Among his students in the early '50s was young James Dean, whom Whitmore advised to go to New York. "I owe a lot to Whitmore," Dean told Seventeen magazine in 1955. "One thing he said helped more than anything. He told me I didn't know the difference between acting as a soft job and acting as a difficult art." For his part, Whitmore remained modest about his own acting talent. Prior to accepting an award recognizing his long career from the Palm Beach International Film Festival in 2002, he told the Palm Beach Post: "I never thought I was good. I've touched the hem of the garment a few times but never grabbed it full-hand." In addition to his son Steve, Whitmore is survived by his third wife, Noreen; his sons James Jr. and Dan; eight grandchildren; and several great-grandchildren. Services are pending.

[WesterMats]

I wonder how Steve Dahl feels about that, he used to rag on him all the time.

http://www.chicagotr...,2073274.column

[Tony]

Robert Anderson, the American playwright and screenwriter whose popular plays explored relationships between men and women and children and parents — in Tea and Sympathy, I Never Sang for My Father and You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running — died Feb. 9 at his Manhattan home. His stepdaughter, Mary Kelly Busch, told Playbill.com that the 91-year-old author, a native New York City resident, had lived with Alzheimer's disease for the past seven years. The cause of death was pneumonia. Busch is the daughter of Mr. Anderson's second wife, the late Teresa Wright. That marriage ended in divorce, but the couple remained close friends until Wright's death in 2005. Mr. Anderson's most popular title may be the sentimental 1953 Broadway drama, Tea and Sympathy, about a sensitive prep school student named Tom, accused of homosexuality, who sleeps with Laura, a teacher's unhappy wife. The Broadway cast of Deborah Kerr (Laura), Leif Erickson and John Kerr (Tom) also appeared in the 1956 film, for which Mr. Anderson wrote the screenplay (which sanitized the gay plot point). Tea and Sympathy has the famous line spoken by the wife to the boy: "Years from now — when you talk about this — and you will! — be kind." Dated though it may seem, the play was nevertheless groundbreaking for asking the question of what defines "manliness" in age of conformity. Mr. Anderson's plays were interested in relationships rather than political issues. Busch said his best-known plays, including I Never Sang for My Father (1968) and the collection of one-acts You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running (1967), were about "people having trouble communicating their desires, their conflicting desires, and other things that prevented them from seeing what's in front of them." I'm Herbert, a play within You Know I Can't Hear You…, concerned a husband and wife who had previous marriages but could not remember with whom they did what. Busch said she could hear her mother and stepfather's voices in that comedy. Mr. Anderson's 1940 first marriage to Phyllis Stohl ended with her death in 1956. He married Teresa Wright, the actress, in 1959. In addition to the Broadway plays Solitaire / Double Solitaire (1971), Silent Night, Lonely Night (1959), All Summer Long (1954), Mr. Anderson wrote the screenplays for "Until They Sail" (1957), "The Nun's Story" (1959) and "The Sand Pebbles" (1966). He was Academy Award-nominated for "The Nun's Story" and for the 1970 screen adaptation of I Never Sang for My Father. He also wrote the novels "After" (1973) and "Getting Up and Going Home" (1978). Before Alzheimer's took hold, Mr. Anderson was a passionate theatregoer and continued writing and plotting. Busch said, "He loved going to the theatre and thinking about it, and thinking about the business. He always looked at life in terms of, 'Oh, that's an interesting idea for a story!' Everything he heard was a possible story…" Mr. Anderson, born Robert Woodruff Anderson and educated in prep school, graduated from Harvard in 1939 and received his M.A. in 1940. He met his future wife, Phyllis, at Harvard. She was head of drama at Erskine School for Girls, which enlisted Harvard boys — including young Mr. Anderson — for roles. She encouraged him to be a playwright. While at Harvard he wrote a musical comedy called Hour Town (1938), an apparent spoof of the current Our Town, for which he wrote book, music and lyrics; he also acted in it and directed. An early play, Come Marching Home, which he wrote while serving in World War II, won top place in the National Theatre Conference contest for plays by servicemen overseas. It was produced at the University of Iowa and in New York City, and helped him win a 1946 playwriting fellowship by the National Theatre Conference. On that fellowship, he studied under John Gassner in the Dramatic Workshop of the New School. His first work on Broadway was creating sketches for the revue Dance Me a Song (1950). His play Love Revisited was produced by Westport Country Playhouse in 1951. An early play, The Eden Rose, was first presented by the Theatre Workshop of Ridgefield, CT, in 1949. Mr. Anderson also wrote for radio and television. In 2004, Polly Holliday starred in the Asolo Theatre Company's premiere production of a little-known play by Mr. Anderson, Free and Clear, in Sarasota, FL. Free and Clear had a brief regional showing 21 years earlier at Long Wharf Theatre, though the nature of that staging is not fully clear. Asolo billed its new staging as the play's world premiere and characterized the Long Wharf staging as an "evaluation production" and a "tryout," terms not usually used in resident theatre. Free and Clear was a family story about two brothers who return home for their mother's birthday, each with hopes not fully embraced by his parents. According to Asolo notes, the play asked, "What obligations do children have to their parents? How much can a parent expect of their children?" Producer Richard G. Fallon said at the time, "Producing this play has been a consummate mission of mine for the past 10 years. I am fulfilling a promise I first made to Robert's agent, Audrey Wood, before she died and then to Robert Anderson, with whom I have become very close. Audrey deeply believed in Robert and his work. I promised to help get this play produced in a way that will truly do it justice. That's why now, at a time when Robert's health is failing, it is so very important to see my promise fulfilled soon. We have a responsibility to produce the play both for Robert and for the play's relevance as his last work. My belief is that, because of the course of events that brought it here, the play was destined for the Asolo stage." In 1991, his three-character one-act, The Last Act Is a Solo, about a frail actress, was aired in a TV production that starred Olympia Dukakis, Edward Hermann and Gavin MacLeod on "The General Motors Playwrights Theater." In addition to the 1970 Gene Hackman-Melvyn Douglas feature film of "I Never Sang for My Father," there was also a 1988 TV movie version starring Harold Gould and Daniel J. Travanti. The drama dealt with a grown son and his aging dad. Mr. Anderson's awards over the years included received The Edward Albee Last Frontier Playwright Award (1997) and The William Inge Lifetime Achievement Award for a Playwright (1985), among other honors. He also taught playwriting for many years. In addition to his stepdaughter, survivors include stepson Niven Terence Busch, nieces Patricia Anderson and Roberta Pagon and nephew James Anderson. A memorial service will be held at Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home at 81st Street and Madison at 1:30 PM Feb. 13. Burial will be private. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made too the Dramatists Guild Fund and the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease.

[Tony]

HAVANA - Orlando "Cachaito" Lopez, considered the "heartbeat" of Cuba's legendary Buena Vista Social Club for his internationally acclaimed bass playing, died Monday of complications from prostate surgery, fellow musicians said. He was 76. Lopez, a founding member of the band brought together in the 1990s by American guitarist and producer Ry Cooder, died in a Havana hospital several days after surgery, said Manuel Galban, a Cuban musician who played with Lopez for decades. "We have lost a great companion," said Galban. Born in Havana in 1933, Lopez became an international sensation as part of the Buena Vista Social Club — a group of elderly, sometimes retired, musicians who were living quietly in Cuba before Cooder brought them together and they became worldwide sensations. "I will remember him as marvelous, both in his music and as a person," Galban, a guitarist, said by telephone. "He was extraordinary, affable, a great bassist." Lopez died less than a week after turned 76. "I called him last week because it was his birthday and his voice didn't sound too good," said musician Amadito Valdes, who added that Lopez had undergone prostate surgery several days ago. "He was a person who was always sharing with everyone around him, very noble." Lopez was held by many to be Buena Vista's heartbeat and had played to international audiences as part of its touring company. The group has lost many of its key members of late. Singer Compay Segundo — who was born Maximo Francisco Repilado Munoz — pianist Ruben Gonzalez, and vocalists Ibrahim Ferrer and Pio Leyva have all died in recent years. But Lopez was also a star in his own right, independent of Buena Vista. His groundbreaking debut album Cachaito won a BBC Radio 3 Award for Word Music in 2002.

[Tony]

Writer of 'Besame Mucho' (English lyrics). SUNNY SKYLAR, one of the last surviving 'Tin Pan Alley' songwriters and a former big band vocalist, died on February 2. He was 95 Born Selig Shaftel in Brooklyn, N.Y. Oct. 11, 1913, Sunny Skylar was the composer and/or lyricist if more than 300 songs, dozens of them standards. Capable of writing both lyrics and music, in this capacity he wrote some memorable songs, such as "Don't Wait Too long" recorded by Frank Sinatra for his milestone "September of My Years" album, and "Gotta Be This or That", recorded by, among others, Ella Fitzgerald for her "Ella Swings Lightly" album. As Sinatra and Ella were considered by many music historians the greatest male/female vocalists of the twentieth century, this alone would have been enough to make any songwriter proud. But Sunny Skylar's most enduring songs and distinction would be as the songwriter who wrote English lyrics to some of the biggest songs of foreign origin, most notably Mexico. Mr. Skylar supplied the English lyrics for such classic standards as Consuelito Velasquez's "Besame Mucho", Gabriel Ruiz's "Amor Amor Amor", both huge hits in the 1940s as recorded by Jimmy Dorsey and covered by hundreds of vocalists ever since. They became a staple for singers who recorded Latin albums, much as Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" was a sure pick for singers who recorded Christmas albums. In 1961, brothers Carlos and Mario Rigual's "Cuando Calienta el Sol", became a hit record in Mexico. Given a new title by Skylar, it became "Love Me With All Your Heart". The "Ray Charles Singers" would make this one of their biggest selling records. Mr. Skylar also added English lyrics to songs which originated in other countries: French composer Michel Polnareff's "Ame Caline" is perhaps better known in Skylar's title "Soul Coixing", while another composition by Dutch composer Jean Senn became "Watching The World Go By". "Love Me With All Your Heart" and "Soul Coixing", a hit in the late '60s, gave Skylar, with only a few other songwriters such as Sammy Cahn and Johnny Mercer, the distinction of being a 'Tin Pan Alley' writer to have major hits in the Beatles/British Rock dominated 1960s. Skylar's songwriting even extended to adding English lyrics to music from the classics: based on Italian opera composer Leoncavallo's "Mattinata", "You're Breaking My Heart" was a hit for Vic Damone in 1949. As a performer, Sunny Skylar sang with such bands as Ben Bernie, Paul Whiteman, Abe Lyman and Vincent Lopez. He performed at such renowned clubs as The Latin Quarter, and upon moving to Las Vegas, The Flamingo and El Rancho. Other notable songs written or co-written by Sunny Skylar included "Hair of Gold, Eyes of Blue", "And So To Sleep", the latter a hit for Patti Page, and "Carnaval In Costa Rica". "Be Mine Tonight" for which Skylar provided English lyrics to Agustin Lara's "Noche de Ronde", was also a major hit. Skylar had been a member of ASCAP since 1942. A widower, Sunny Skylar is survived by five children, ten grandchildren, one great-grandchild, a sister, and a brother, Arthur Shaftel, who was a musician and bandleader.

[Tony]

Kelly Groucutt, the bass player in the rock band Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), has died aged 63. He suffered a heart attack on Wednesday night and was taken to Worcestershire Royal Hospital but did not regain consciousness and died on Thursday. Groucutt, who also sang on the Birmingham band's records, joined the group in 1974 and left in 1983. His friend Mike Sheridan, of Mike Sherridan and The Nightriders, said he was "gob smacked" by the news. He added: "When I heard the news this afternoon I just couldn't believe it. He seemed to be such a fit guy." Groucutt played with The Sight and Sound before joining ELO and was an influential figure in the Brum Beat scene of the 1960s.

[Tony]

SALT LAKE CITY (Ticker) -- The Utah Jazz lost their patriarch on Friday, as team owner Larry H. Miller died at the age of 64 due to complications from type 2 diabetes. The team announced that Miller passed away at his home, surrounded by family members. Miller had endured severe health problems recently and had both of his legs removed below the knee last month. The owner of the Jazz for the last 23 years, Miller first purchased 50 percent of the franchise in 1985, then took care of the remaining half just one year later and helped make the team an institution in Salt Lake City. He is one of the most prominent and well-known businessmen in the Salt Lake metro area, owning 39 auto dealerships and several movie theaters, among many other business ventures. He is survived by his wife Gail, four sons, one daughter and 21 grandchildren.

[Badger]

Soul Guitarist Snooks Eaglin Dies At 72 By Lars Gotrich NPR.org, February 19, 2009 - Soul, blues and R&B guitarist Snooks Eaglin died of a heart attack Wednesday in his hometown of New Orleans. He was 72. In the 1950s, Eaglin was a one-man band on the streets of New Orleans. That's where folklorist Harry Oster saw him and asked him to record the album of acoustic blues that would become New Orleans Street Singer. But it wouldn't be long before Eaglin had a band to make the music he really loved: electric R&B. Blind from birth, Eaglin learned how to play by listening to the radio. He created mesmerizing rhythm and lead tracks from a unique playing style that utilized his thumbnail. Pianist Allen Toussaint says that Eaglin was "unlimited on the guitar." He played alongside Toussaint and Professor Longhair, and inspired the likes of Eric Clapton and Bonnie Raitt. Eaglin was called the "Human Jukebox," pulling classic gospel songs and blues standards out of thin air, often to the bewildered chagrin of his bandmates in concert.

[Tony]

Howard Zieff, a top advertising print photographer and TV commercial director in the 1960s and early '70s before tapping his flair for comedy as the director of movies including "Private Benjamin," "Hearts of the West" and "My Girl," has died. He was 81. Zieff died Saturday of complications of Parkinson's disease at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said his wife, Ronda Gomez-Quinones. Beginning with "Slither," a 1973 comedy with James Caan and Peter Boyle, Zieff directed eight other comedies, including "House Calls," "Unfaithfully Yours" and "The Dream Team." The effects of Parkinson's disease forced Zieff to retire shortly after the release of "My Girl 2" in 1994. "I loved Howard and his zest for life," Goldie Hawn, who received an Oscar nomination for best actress in a leading role for "Private Benjamin," said in a statement to The Times on Monday. "What I remember and cherish most was his humor and love of laughter," she said. "He had a special talent for directing comedies, always a rare gift. We laughed and cried together while making 'Private Benjamin,' and I will miss him so much." Richard Benjamin, one of the stars of the 1978 movie "House Calls," told The Times on Monday that Zieff "had a wonderful wit and was very, very smart." "The main thing that you wanted to do was get him laughing," said Benjamin. "If I got a laugh from him, I knew we were doing it right. And it was a wonderful set, where you just wanted comedy to flourish. It was relaxed and fun and easy, and he kept it like that." Before Benjamin met Zieff or even knew who he was, he was a fan of Zieff's work in print ads and TV commercials. As a TV commercial director in the the '60s, Zieff was known for what Time magazine called his "zany sense of humor and an apparently limitless imagination." He was, the magazine said, "the leading practitioner of what the trade calls the indirect sell: The product is visible and so is the pitch, but the commercial zings across chiefly because it is entertaining and refuses to take itself seriously." One of Zieff's best-known commercials was the Alka-Seltzer " Mamma Mia. That's a spicy meatball" spot in which a TV commercial crew is shown filming a middle-aged man seated at a kitchen table where his wife has placed a plate of meatballs in front of him. "Mama mia. That's a spicy meatball," he says after taking a bite. "Cut," the off-screen director says. "What was the matter with that?" asks the meatball-eating actor. "The accent." And so it goes -- take after failed take. By the 59th take, the effects of sampling those meatballs has taken a heavy toll. "Sometimes you eat more than you should," intones an off-camera announcer. "And when it's spicy besides -- mama mia, do you need Alka-Seltzer . . . " When Time magazine dubbed Zieff the "Master of the Mini-Ha-Ha" in 1967, he had made 200 commercials over the previous six years. But he also was known for his magazine advertisements, including a memorable series of ads for Levy's Real Jewish Rye Bread that featured an American Indian, a Chinese man and a black child. The tag line was "You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's." Charlie Moss, former creative director of Wells, Rich and Greene, a now-defunct New York advertising agency launched in 1966, said one of Zieff's "great contributions to the business was his use of actors who represented real people, rather than models." Among the unknown young actors whom Zieff cast in commercials were Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro and Richard Dreyfuss. "He was the King of Advertising for a period of time, and then he left New York for Hollywood," said Moss. "I recall that during those years, you took it as a kind of mark of your credentials in the business if Howard even considered your commercial as something he wanted to do." Zieff was born in Chicago on Oct. 21, 1927, and later moved with his family to the Boyle Heights section of East Los Angeles. He studied art for a year at Los Angeles City College. He dropped out in 1946 to join the Navy and studied photography at the naval photography school. Returning to Los Angeles after his discharge, he enrolled in the Art Center College of Design. He worked briefly as a cameraman for a Los Angeles TV station before moving to New York, where he began working as a still photographer in advertising. In addition to his wife, Zieff is survived by his sister, Margie Finn. A funeral will be held Sunday for family and close friends. A memorial tribute will be held at a later date.

[Tony]

Science fiction author Philip Jose Farmer died this morning at his home. He was 91. The Peoria-based writer had written more than 75 books and was awarded the top honors in his field. That includes the Grand Master Award for Science Fiction in 2001, an award also given to noted authors such as Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein. Farmer had a world-wide following, with fans travelling to Peoria once or twice a year. He was once quoted as saying that, particular in his early career, he had more fans in France, Italy, Germany and Japan than in the United States. Even after he retired from writing, his fans continued to produce “Farmerphile,” a magazine devoted to his life and works.

[nobodies]

Norm Van Lier is dead! I haven't been a Bulls fan in a while (When Jordan retired, I discovered, after being a Bulls fan pretty much my entire life, I was really just a Jordan/fair weather fan). But this just made me really sad. Great broadcaster, and player.