Charlie Daniels was an American musician and composer best known for his number-one country hit “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” (1979), an instance of a cultural product of a deal with the Devil.
Tag Archives: American music
RIP Max Crook (1936 – 2020)
Max Crook was an American musician whose name is virtually unknown.
Some research yields his co-authorship of “Runaway” (1961), the Del Shannon song.
In that song he also plays the keyboard solo.
That solo was played on a self-invented electric keyboard called the “Maximillian” which was based the clavioline, which was in turn a variation on the Musitron.
RIP Johnny Mandel (1925 – 2020)
Johnny Mandel was an American composer of innumerable songs.
One of these songs stands out: “Suicide Is Painless” (1970).
RIP Bonnie Pointer (1950 – 2020)
Bonnie Pointer was an American singer, part of the The Pointer Sisters.
The Pointer Sisters also did background vocals on “God Make Me Funky” (1975) by The Headhunters, the American jazz-funk fusion band led by Herbie Hancock.
RIP Bob Northern (1934 – 2020)
Bob Northern was an American jazz French hornist.
Sound Awareness (1972) was one of the nine records David Toop recently posted on his Facebook as documents from the audio recorded stage of an internal war of 400plus years (in which many were complicit).
RIP Mark Barkan (1934 – 2020)
Mark Barkan (1934 – 2020) was an American songwriter and record producer.
In 1966, Barkan produced the album Psychedelic Moods by The Deep, credited as the first psychedelic album.
While researching his death, I came across the song “A Great Day For The Clown” (1967) which is a song not hard to fall in love with. It is also supposedly an Northern soul classic. Love the horns. Who does the horns?
RIP Jimmy Cobb (1929 – 2020)
Jimmy Cobb was an American jazz drummer best known for his work with Miles Davis, and perhaps most famously so for being the drummer on Kind of Blue (1959).
RIP Betty Wright (1953 – 2020)
Betty Wright was an American composer and singer.
She rose to fame in the 1970s with hits such as “Clean Up Woman” (1971) , “Shoorah! Shoorah!” (1974) and “Tonight Is the Night” (1974).
Born in Miami, she was married to King Sporty and was part of the Henry Stone, TK Records and Peter Brown circle. She was the vocalist for the latter’s “Dance with Me” (1978) single.
Her voice and the sound of the seventies material is similar to that of personal favorite Loleatta Holloway
RIP Little “A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-wop-bam-boom!” Richard (1932 – 2020)
Little Richard was an American composer and singer best-known for shouting “A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-wop-bam-boom!” at the beginning of the song “Tutti Frutti” (1955).
Without Little Richard, no Prince.
And without Little Richard no “Be-Bop-A-Lula”, “Diddy Wah Diddy”, “Da Doo Ron Ron” and ” Do Wah Diddy Diddy”.
But without “Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay”, no Little Richard.
The boom comes first. The cycle continues.
Over at Tumblr I posted the Paladin 1969 edition of Nick Cohn’s book Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom.
RIP Sweet Pea Atkinson (1945 – 2020)
Sweet Pea Atkinson was an American singer best known for his vocal contributions to the releases of the band Was (Not Was) (I like their “Wheel Me Out”).
His solo singles include “Dance or Die” (1982) which was played at the Paradise Garage.