B. J. Thomas was an American singer best known for interpreting the song “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head”, a song written by by Hal David and Burt Bacharach.
Tag Archives: 2021
RIP Benoît Sokal (1954 – 2021)
Benoît Sokal was a Belgian comic artist best known for his comics series Inspector Canardo (1979-2013). Canardo is an alcoholic, womanizing private investigator.
I was fond of him in the late 1980s, my comics phase, when I was especially fond of RanXerox.
RIP Roger Hawkins (1945 – 2021)
Roger Hawkins was an American drummer.
He played drums on countless well-known soul, disco, and r&b songs.
He was a co-founder of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section in Alabama, a house band like the Compass Point All Stars, Booker T. & the M.G.’s and the Salsoul Orchestra.
Hawkins played drums on “Love Sensation” (1980) by Loleatta Holloway.
RIP Franco Battiato (1945 – 2021)
Franco Battiato was an Italian composer, writer, filmmaker, and painter.
His name is on the ‘Nurse with Wound list’ and his compositions are in the ‘Caribou 1000’ and on the ‘Daily Fingertracks’.
His debut albums Fetus (1972) and Pollution (1972) are typical for the beginning of his career. He made these albums when he was 27.
I wrote something here about peak creativity but erased it. Notions such as ‘late bloomer’, ‘child prodigy’, ‘imperial phase’, ‘genius’ and ‘talent’ and artists such as David Bowie, Lee Perry and Goya crossed my thoughts.
Battato was new to me. I enjoyed him immensely yesterday. An old adagium of me comes to mind. Something about looking for beauty in unexpected places.
RIP Curtis Fuller (1934 – 2021)
Curtis Fuller was an American trombonist known for his work on the American jazz scene between the years 1957 and c. 1980.
Trombonists I admire include Rico Rodriguez, Peter Zummo, Vin Gordon, Don Drummond, Fred Wesley and Willie Colón.
RIP Jean-Claude Romer (1933 – 2021)
Jean-Claude Romer was a French actor, film critic and film historian.
He was editor-in-chief of French film magazine Midi Minuit Fantastique (1962 – 1971), the first magazine dedicated to genre cinema and cinema fantastique.
It has come to my attention that the first issue of Midi Minuit Fantastique is online in full at Archive.org[1].
That issue is dedicated to Terence Fisher, who still seems to be a bit underrated and of whose film The Stranglers of Bombay it is said:
“More clearly than any other Hammer effort, The Stranglers of Bombay lays bare the foundation of voyeurism, scopophilia, misogyny, castration anxiety, repression, sadomasochism, and “the male gaze” which informs the construction of Hammer’s output.”
The Charm of Evil: The Life and Films of Terence Fisher (1991) by Wheeler W. Dixon
One thing leading to another as they say, I stop here, because it is leading me too far.
RIP Karl Wirsum (1939 – 2021)
Karl Wirsum was an American artist, one of the Chicago Imagists, a group known for their grotesquerie, surrealism, and complete uninvolvement with New York art world trends.
In my universe he is famous for illustrating the nobrow essay “Cross the Border — Close the Gap” (1968).
RIP Tawny Kitaen (1961 – 2021)
Tawny Kitaen was an American actress and model.
She first came to my attention as the lead to The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik-Yak (1984).
To the world at large she is probably best-known for her parts in the Whitesnake videos, especially in the 1987 clip for the song “Here I Go Again” (1982). In that clip, she is seen cartwheeling across the hoods of two Jaguars XJ dressed in a white negligee.
RIP Ronald Inglehart (1934 — 2021)
Ronald Inglehart was an American political scientist, co-author of the Inglehart–Welzel cultural map of the world based on the World Values Survey.
I discovered Inglehart by reading and reviewing Whiteshift (2018).
I believe the studies of values became important again after the failure of the end of history by Fukuyama and 9/11.
These two events proved that it’s not the economy stupid.
RIP Willy Kurant (1934 – 2021)
Willy Kurant was a Belgian cinematographer, famous for shooting films such as Trans-Europ-Express (1966), Man on Horseback (1969), Cannabis (1970) and Je t’aime moi non plus (1976).