Pee Wee Ellis was an American composer, musician and saxophonist, best-known for co-writing “Cold Sweat” (1967) and “Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud” (1968) with James Brown and writing “The Chicken” (1969).
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RIP Julz Sale (c. 1960 – 2021)
RIP Richard H. Kirk (1956 – 2021)
Richard H. Kirk was an English musician working within electronic music. With Cabaret Voltaire, he released compositions such as “Nag Nag Nag” (1979).
RIP Sylvano Bussotti (1931 – 2021)
Sylvano Bussotti was an Italian composer and poet known for such pieces as Five Piano Pieces for David Tudor (1959).
A piece of the “sheet music” of that composition is reproduced in A Thousand Plateaus (1980).
RIP Clive Sinclair (1940 – 2021)
Clive Sinclair was an English entrepreneur and inventor.
He invented the first really cheap computer (ZX80) and one of the very first mass-produced electrical vehicles (Sinclair C5).
RIP Nino Castelnuovo (1936 – 2021)
Nino Castelnuovo was an Italian actor best-known for Rocco and His Brothers (1960) and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964).
In my little universe, he is best-known for his part in Camille 2000 (1969).
RIP Carl Bean (1944 – 2021)
Carl Bean was an American singer and activist known for interpreting “I Was Born This Way” in 1977.
That song is very much reminiscent of “I Am What I Am” (1983).
Both songs hint at the biological origin of homosexuality.
RIP Jean-Paul Belmondo (1933 – 2021)
Jean-Paul Belmondo was a French actor known for his boxer’s nose and rubbery lips.
He is famous for breaking the fourth wall in the nouvelle vague film Breathless (1960); for his stunts and bravado in That Man from Rio (1964); and for painting his face blue in Pierrot le Fou (1965).
In the beginning of his career, he played in both art films and commercial films, later on he only followed the money and the popularity, flat out saying:
“I really prefer making adventure movies like Rio to the intellectual movies of Alain Resnais or Alain Robbe-Grillet.”–Jean-Paul Belmondo, The New York Times, 1964
RIP Alemayehu Eshete (1941 – 2021)
Alemayehu Eshete was an Ethiopian singer.
Alemayehu Eshete opens the door to the Éthiopiques (1998-2017) series.
RIP Mikis Theodorakis (1925 – 2021)
Mikis Theodorakis was a Greek composer famous for writing the sirtaki for the film Zorba the Greek (1964). This piece of music is has become the embodiment of Greece, it is the most archetypal Greek music. More than that, it is definitely one of the most famous melodies of the 20th century, recognized — I think — by the majority of people in the world, wherever they live. On that last point, I have no evidence.
He was an opponent of the Greek junta, which like Salazar in Portugal and Franco in Spain, put Greece under the rule of a fascist military dictatorship until the mid 1970s.
I give also you the trailer of Z (1969), the music you hear is Theodorakis’s. Z is a work of political fiction, an indictment of the then-fascist Greece.