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Chita Rivera, one of Broadway’s most illustrious stars, has died at the age of 91. A consummate “triple-threat” entertainer, she was celebrated for her singing, acting and dancing in classic musicals including West Side Story and Chicago. She won Tony awards for best actress in a musical for Kiss of the Spider Woman and The Rink and was given a lifetime Tony award in 2018.
A statement was made on Tuesday by her friend and publicist, Merle Frimark, who said: “It is with great sadness that Lisa Mordente, the daughter of Chita Rivera, announces the death of her beloved mother who died peacefully in New York after a brief illness.”
Rivera emerged as a New York theatre sensation in the 1950s and was still centre-stage six decades later, in the 2015 Broadway production The Visit, which reunited her with composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb. She performed their songs over decades, not just in musicals but also in her own cabaret revues.
Rivera’s father was born in Puerto Rico and her mother had Scottish and Irish heritage. Rivera grew up in Washington DC with four siblings and her father died when she was seven. She briefly considered becoming a nun and said her first encounter with theatre was attending mass, where she was dazzled by the text, the incense and the costumes.
Rivera was an energetic child, later describing herself as the neighbourhood’s “cheetah” as she was always running around and cycling fast. At the age of nine, after breaking a table when causing a rumpus at home, she was sent by her mother to learn ballet in the hope that it would instil some discipline and let her burn off some energy. Rivera recalled how her father’s saxophone and clarinet were sold by her mother to pay for the dance lessons and how she felt a sense of repaying her family’s investment in her throughout her career.
After attending George Balanchine’s School of American Ballet, she set her sights on musical theatre. Having started out performing as Conchita del Rivero she shortened her name after being told it was too long for theatre posters. In 1956, she starred in Mr Wonderful with Sammy Davis Jr, with whom she had a relationship.
The following year brought her the role of Anita, one of the Puerto Rican Sharks gang who performs Jerome Robbins’ rousing choreography for America in West Side Story and also shares a duet, A Boy Like That, with Maria in the musical. With music by Leonard Bernstein, book by Arthur Laurents and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, West Side Story’s spin on Romeo and Juliet was a phenomenon first on Broadway and then in the West End, via Manchester (“I’d never seen so much fog,” remembered Rivera). By the time it reached London, Rivera had married Tony Mordente – who played a member of the Sharks’ rival gang, the Jets – with whom she had a daughter, Lisa. Rivera and Mordente’s relationship had begun in secret as the actors playing the Sharks and the Jets had been told they shouldn’t socialise, in order to heighten the tension between their characters.
Almost two decades later, Rivera originated another indelible Broadway role – that of the steely vaudevillian Velma Kelly in Kander and Ebb’s Chicago. “Velma is not ashamed to go as low as she needs to get as high as she wants,” she later remembered. All That Jazz and Cell Block Tango were among the songs she performed. In 1976 Chicago brought her a second Tony award nomination, 15 years after her first, for Bye Bye Birdie. A sequel to that show, entitled Bring Back Birdie, flopped in 1981.
As well as her daughter, Rivera is survived by her siblings Julio, Armando and Lola del Rivero. Her older sister Carmen predeceased her.
Statement from President Joe Biden on the Passing of Chita Rivera | The White House
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Carl Weathers, ‘Rocky’s’ Apollo Creed and ‘Mandalorian’ Actor, Dies at 76
https://teakdoor.com/attachment.php?...d=111399&stc=1
Carl Weathers, who starred as Apollo Creed in the first four “Rocky” films opposite Sylvester Stallone, died Thursday, his manager Matt Luber confirmed to Variety. He was 76.
Weathers also starred in 1987’s “Predator” and had a memorable role in Adam Sandler’s “Happy Gilmore.” He was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his work in the “Star Wars” series “The Mandalorian.”
He voiced Combat Carl in “Toy Story 4” and played a fictionalized version of himself in a recurring role on “Arrested Development.” His other credits include the TV series “Street Justice,” “Colony,” “The Shield,” “Chicago Justice” and “Brothers,” and the films “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Death Hunt” and “The Comebacks.”
MORE Carl Weathers Dead: Rocky's Apollo Creed, Star Wars, Predator Actor Was 76
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Had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Weathers, once. Sitting in the Seattle airport, in ‘96, waiting for my flight, and he happened to be sitting right next to me. Got a chance to talk to him for a bit. Very laid back gentleman.
RIP, Apollo.
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Adrian! Adrian!
I hope they don't need him in The Mandalorian again.
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Former U.S. Sen. Jean Carnahan, who became the first female senator to represent Missouri when she was appointed to replace her husband following his death, died Tuesday. She was 90.
Carnahan, a Democrat, was appointed to the Senate in 2001 after the posthumous election of her husband, Gov. Mel Carnahan, and she served until 2002.
“Mom passed peacefully after a long and rich life. She was a fearless trailblazer. She was brilliant, creative, compassionate and dedicated to her family and her fellow Missourians,” her family said in a statement.
Her family did not specify the cause of death but said Carnahan died after a brief illness at a hospice facility in suburban St. Louis.
Carnahan was born Dec. 20, 1933, in Washington, D.C., and grew up in the nation’s capital. Her father worked as a plumber and her mother as a hairdresser.
She met Mel Carnahan, the son of a Missouri congressman, at a church event, and they became better acquainted after sitting next to each other at a class in high school, according to information provided by the family. They were married on June 12, 1954.
Jean Carnahan graduated a year later from George Washington University with a bachelor’s degree in business and public administration, and they later raised four children on a farm near Rolla, Missouri.
She served as first lady of Missouri after her husband’s election as governor in 1992 and through his two terms.
On Oct. 16, 2000, the governor, the couple’s son, Roger, and an aide were killed in a plane crash. After Mel Carnahan was elected posthumously three weeks later, acting Gov. Roger Wilson appointed Jean Carnahan to fill the seat left vacant by her husband’s death.
She served from Jan. 3, 2001, to Nov. 25, 2002.
After her appointment, Carnahan gave a speech in the Senate in which she noted her tragic path to the chamber.
“My name has never been on a ballot. On election night, there was no victory celebration,” she said. “You are here because of your win. I am here because of my loss. But we are all here to do the work of this great nation.”
Roy Temple, a longtime aide to the Carnahans and Jean Carnahan’s chief of staff, said he saw Carnahan at her 90th birthday celebration last year and told her, “Jean, you are like a flower that blooms wherever you are planted.”
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Wayne Kramer, co-founder of rock band MC5, dies aged 75
Guitarist helped to give Detroit band their powerful, politically charged sound and continued their legacy into the 21st century
Wayne Kramer, the guitarist who co-created MC5 – one of the rawest, most influential and politically engaged bands in US history – has died aged 75. His Instagram page announced the news: “Wayne S Kramer. Peace be with you. April 30 1948 – February 2 2024.”
Born and raised in Detroit, Kramer teamed with teenage friend and fellow guitarist Fred “Sonic” Smith, each of them influenced as much by free jazz as they were by R&B and rock’n’roll. Along with the frontman Rob Tyner, they made MC5 into an incendiary force in their city’s music scene, alongside peers such as the Stooges.
MC5 (short for Motor City 5) quickly built a formidable live reputation playing on bills with the likes of Cream, and were signed to Elektra in 1968. Their debut album, Kick Out the Jams, was released the following year: a live recording from Detroit’s Grande Ballroom where the band had made their name.
The band were proud of their working-class roots and were charged with revolutionary zeal from the outset; manager John Sinclair formed the White Panther Party and the band protested against the Vietnam war and the Democratic National Convention. Buoyed by an astonishingly heavy guitar sound from Kramer and Smith, the words “kick out the jams” – hollered by Tyner on the album’s title track – they became synonymous with resistance, and pointed the way towards the punk rock of the 1970s.
“People said ‘Oh wow, “Kick out the jams” means break down restrictions,’ and it made good copy, but when we wrote it, we didn’t have that in mind,” Kramer later said, explaining it was directed more at bands who would incessantly jam.
The group hopped to Atlantic Records and released their first studio album, Back in the USA, in 1970, followed by High Time the next year. Each album flopped commercially; bankrupt and mired in drug use, MC5 split in 1972.
Kramer continued his music career alongside dealing drugs, and was jailed for four years following a bust in 1975. After his release in 1979, he joined funk-rockers Was (Not Was) and was an itinerant figure on the New York City underground music scene, but spent much of the 1980s out of the spotlight, working mostly as a carpenter. In the mid-90s he began releasing music again, as a solo artist signed to punk label Epitaph Records.
Tyner and Smith died in the early to mid-1990s, but in 2001 Kramer formed a supergroup to perform MC5 music, including the Cult’s Ian Astbury and Motorhead’s Lemmy. While the lineup didn’t stay quite so starry, MC5 were reignited as a touring entity and played gigs across the world in various iterations, including a 50th anniversary tour in 2018. That year he also published his memoir, The Hard Stuff: Dope, Crime, the MC5 and My Life of Impossibilities.
At the time of his death, Kramer was preparing to release a long-awaited third studio album from the band. Explaining why he was returning, Kramer said: “I think it was time to reignite that spirit of 1968, the spirit of my generation, when we were all young people. I think we’re at a very dangerous time in our history. And I think if we don’t all organise, come together, and step up, we could lose it all. Democracy could go away. The forces that we’re up against are not joking. This is not playtime. This is serious.”
A release was being planned for spring 2024.
In later life, Kramer also co-created the US arm of Billy Bragg’s Jail Guitar Doors initiative, providing musical instruments for prison inmates.
Among those paying tribute to Kramer following his death was former collaborator Tom Morello, guitarist with Rage Against the Machine. “Brother Wayne Kramer was the best man I’ve ever known,” he wrote. “He possessed a one-of-a-kind mixture of deep wisdom & profound compassion, beautiful empathy and tenacious conviction.”
Wayne Kramer, co-founder of rock band MC5, dies aged 75 | Music | The Guardian
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The news was confirmed on Saturday by Olivia Grange, Jamaica’s minister for culture, who wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “I share with you my deep regret at the passing of Aston Francis Barrett, popularly known as ‘Family Man’ or ‘Fams’ … He died at the University of Miami Hospital in Florida in the United States early this morning.”
Barrett was born in 1946 and grew up in Kingston, where he would help to lay the foundations for reggae and dub. As a child, he sang along to soul music on the radio before switching over to the bass.
He built his first bass guitar from scratch using plywood, a curtain rod and an old ashtray. In a 2007 interview with Bass Player magazine, he said: “When I’m playing the bass, it’s like I’m singing. I compose a melodic line and see myself like I’m singing baritone.”
Along with his brother Carlton, Barrett played with groups including Bob Marley & the Wailers, the Hippy Boys and Lee “Scratch” Perry’s The Upsetters. He was also a mentor to many Jamaican musicians including Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare of the reggae production duo Sly & Robbie.
After joining the Wailers in the 1970s, Barrett became bandleader of Marley’s backing band and co-producer of the group’s albums. He remained a member for the rest of Marley’s life, contributing to the much-loved albums Burnin’ and Uprising, among others.
But his legacy stretched much further: he continued to tour with later iterations of the Wailers and, in 2015, he was named the 25th greatest bassist of all time by NME readers. In 2021, he was honoured with the Order of Distinction (Commander class) in the National Honours and Awards on Jamaica’s 59th Anniversary of Independence.
In his 2007 Bass Player feature, he said: “I’ve played before Bob, with Bob, and after Bob and along the way I create a whole new concept of bass playing. That’s just my thing. That’s my destiny.”
Grange’s update also expressed her support for the family of the “pioneer of Jamaican music”. She said: “As we commemorate Reggae Month 2024, I wish to express my sincere condolences to his wife, his children, his relatives and to members of the local and international reggae music fraternity. May the angels welcome home Aston “Family Man” Barrett to Mount Zion.”
In 2006, Barrett entered a legal battle with Island Records, claiming £60m in unpaid royalties for his production and songwriting work on the albums, but his campaign was unsuccessful. He retired from music in 2019.
The news of Barrett’s death comes less than two weeks before the release of Bob Marley: One Love, the biopic of Marley in which Barrett will be played by his son, Aston Barrett Jr.
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Probably from watching that game.
Added: Didn't realise he retired so young.
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N. Scott Momaday, the first Native American novelist to win a Pulitzer Prize for his 1968 debut novel, "House Made of Dawn," has died at 89, publisher HarperCollins announced Monday.
The big picture: Momaday published more than a dozen books of poetry and novels across his career and is credited for sparking the modern Indigenous literary movement.
- Amont the Indigenous writers he influenced were Chickasaw novelist Linda Hogan, Spokane and Coeur d'Alene writer Sherman Alexie and Laguna Pueblo novelist Leslie Marmon Silko.
Driving the news: Momaday died Jan. 24 at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
- He had been suffering from a variety of illnesses. No cause of death was immediately clear.
Details: Born Navarre Scott Mammedaty, in Lawton, Oklahoma, to the Kiowa Tribe, he moved to New Mexico as a child and grew up on the Jemez Pueblo in New Mexico, where his parents taught school.
- It was there among the red rocks and mountains he'd be inspired years later to write "House Made of Dawn," a novel about a returning Native American World War II veteran struggling with depression.
Zoom in: The PBS American Masters documentary series in 2019 aired "N. Scott Momaday: Words from a Bear" where actors like Jeff Bridges and James Earl Jones who said Momaday's work touched them.
- "I thought his voice was one of a storyteller. But because he had this poet ring to it, it took on a whole different tone," actor Robert Redford said in the film. "I think that's why I got hooked on Scott."
The intrigue: Momaday told me in a rare interview in 2019 when I was with The Associated Press he wanted to write a memoir about his childhood with his teacher parents and explain why he saw himself as a reincarnation of a bear.
- He also wanted to write about being the first Native American writer to win the Pulitzer, studying American poet Emily Dickinson's manuscripts, and getting followed by Soviet Union agents while teaching in Moscow.
- It's unclear if he finished the memoir.
Momaday said at the time that he was humbled by writers who continued to say his had influenced them.
- "I'm greatly appreciative of that, but it comes a little bit of a surprise every time I hear it," Momaday said.
- "I think I have been an influence. It's not something I take a lot of credit for."
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Dad's Army Pvt Pike RIP
The Dad’s Army and EastEnders actor Ian Lavender has died at the age of 77, his agent has said.
Lavender, who best known for playing Private Pike in the classic BBC comedy, was also its last surviving regular cast member. He died on Friday.
Don't tell him, Pike! - Dad's Army 50th Anniversary - YouTube
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Country and Western star Toby Keith has died of cancer so suddenly no-one has had a chance to prepare an obituary.
Quote:
Toby Keith, the country singer who scored the genre’s most-played song of the ’90s with “Should’ve Been a Cowboy,” died on Monday night of stomach cancer. He was 62.
The news was announced on Keith’s official website as well as his social media channels. “Toby Keith passed peacefully last night on Feb. 5, surrounded by his family,” the statement reads. “He fought his fight with grace and courage. Please respect the privacy of his family at this time.”
In June 2022, Keith revealed that he had been diagnosed with stomach cancer. “I’ve spent the last 6 months receiving chemo, radiation and surgery,” Keith wrote at the time. “So far, so good. I need time to breathe, recover and relax.”
More to come…
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Toni Stern, a breezy young Californian who became a trusted lyricist for Carole King, providing the words for the enduring standard “It’s Too Late” and many other songs during Ms. King’s flowering as a chart-topping solo artist, died on Jan. 17 at her home in Santa Ynez, Calif., near Santa Barbara. She was 79.
Her husband and only immediate survivor, Jerry Rounds, confirmed the death. He did not specify the cause.
Ms. Stern, a Los Angeles native, was an aspiring painter and poet living in Laurel Canyon, an enclave popular with the Los Angeles rock elite, in the late 1960s. It was there that she met Ms. King, who had moved west from New Jersey after a painful breakup with her husband and songwriting partner, Gerry Goffin, with whom she had formed one of the decade’s powerhouse hit-making duos.
The two hit it off immediately. “When I moved to California in 1968, she was the epitome of a free-spirited Laurel Canyon woman,” Ms. King wrote in a Facebook post after Ms. Stern’s death. “She lived in a hillside house with her dog, Arf, surrounded by books, record albums, plants and macramé.”
The two would soon share songwriting credits. When Ms. King stepped into the limelight as a solo performer, Ms. Stern provided lyrics to the songs “What Have You Got to Lose” and “Raspberry Jam” on her first solo album, “Writer,” released in 1970.
Their partnership continued on the follow-up, “Tapestry” (1971), a pop music colossus that topped the Billboard 200 for 15 weeks and went on to become one of the best-selling albums of all time. Ms. Stern provided the words for “It’s Too Late,” which was No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart for five weeks, and “Where You Lead.”
The lyrics for “It’s Too Late” captured the wistfulness, but also the clarity, of a love affair that has run its course. They came to Ms. Stern in a flash of inspiration, Mr. Rounds said in a phone interview.
“She sat down one morning with her Smith Corona,” he said, “and the creativity flowed.”
Stayed in bed all mornin’ just to pass the time
There’s somethin’ wrong here, there can be no denyin’
One of us is changin’, or maybe we’ve just stopped tryin’.
For Ms. King, the music flowed just as easily. “I remember sitting down at the piano with the lyrics on the stand and hearing the music come out of me pretty much as you hear it on ‘Tapestry,’” she wrote on Facebook.
The song was hailed as a classic. “If there’s a truer song about breaking up than ‘It’s Too Late,’” the rock critic Robert Christgau wrote, “the world (or at least AM radio) isn’t ready for it.”
Toni Kathrin Stern was born on Nov. 4, 1944, the youngest of two children of Harry Stern, a traveling salesman, and Audrey (Johnson) Stern, an apartment manager.
She graduated from Hollywood High School in 1962, briefly attended Los Angeles City College and later moved to Paris, where she studied painting, before returning to Los Angeles, where she began to envision poetry she been writing as song lyrics.
At 23, she gave a handful of samples to her friend Bert Schneider, a creator of “The Monkees,” the sitcom about a fictional quartet of pop stars that transformed its stars into a real-life recording sensation. He arranged a meeting between her and Ms. King.
“I was a complete unknown,” Ms. Stern said in a 2018 interview with the website Compulsive Reader. “You might say I started at the top. I didn’t even know if the lyrics I created could be fashioned into song.”
The two collaborated on “As We Go Along,” featured in “Head” (1968), the surrealistic film that helped explode the Monkees’ teen-friendly television image. They would continue to work together into the mid-1970s.
Ultimately, Ms. Stern’s husband said, she decided she had no taste for the music industry hustle and returned her focus to poetry. She published several volumes over the years, the most recent of which, “The Wet Clay of My Heart,” came out last year.
Her poetry “explores small everyday pleasures and the unknowable, together in a place of abstraction and clarity, without excess, without heaviness or tension,” her editor, Trish Reynales, wrote in an email.
Her work in music was anything but forgotten, however. “It’s Too Late” and “Where You Lead” were featured in the hit Broadway show “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical,” which opened in 2014. “Where You Lead” also served as the theme song to the critically acclaimed television series “Gilmore Girls.”
“‘Where You Lead’ had a stand-by-your-man theme consistent with our having grown up in the 1950s,” Ms. King wrote in an email. When Amy Sherman-Palladino, the show’s creator, asked to use it as the theme song, she added, “Toni rewrote the lyric to celebrate the relationship between a mother and her daughter — and that is the version I hope will endure.”
As for her “It’s Too Late” lyrics, they were not drawn from personal experience, nor did Ms. Stern ever categorize it as a breakup song. “It is a song of optimism and gratitude,” Mr. Rounds said, adding that “the lyrics subtly but profoundly suggested to the world that in relationships, women could be on equal terms with men.”
“By the way,” he added, “she never stayed in bed all morning.”
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Henry Fambrough, the last surviving original member of the Spinners, has died aged 85.
Fambrough died peacefully in his northern Virginia home on Wednesday, spokesperson Tanisha Jackson said in a statement.
He was the last original member of legendary R&B group The Spinners, who were responsible for hits including It’s A Shame, Could It Be I’m Falling in Love, and The Rubberband Man.
The group – comprised of Fambrough, Billy Henderson, Pervis Jackson, Bobby Smith, Philippé Wynne and John Edwards – was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in November.
Formed in 1954 under the name The Domingoes, the band went on to earn 16 Grammy Award nominations and made 18 platinum and gold albums.
It was It’s A Shame, a song co-written for the Detroit band by Stevie Wonder, which rocketed them to fame in 1970 under Motown Records.
Henry Fambrough, Motown legend and The Spinners member, dies aged 85 | Metro News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvhxNpMKs0A
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The Mexican entertainment industry is engulfed in sorrow as it grapples with the untimely demise of the revered actress, Helena Rojo. The news of her passing on February 3, 2024, due to liver cancer, has cast a pall over the artistic community, leaving a void that will be challenging to fill. Rojo, at the age of 79, may have lost her fight against the aggressive illness, but her enduring legacy promises to inspire and move both her dedicated fans and fellow artists for generations to come.
A Legendary Career
Helena Rojo’s career stands as a testament to her remarkable talent and dedication to the craft. Spanning several decades, she etched her name in the annals of Mexican cinema and television. Her roles in iconic telenovelas such as “Te Acuerdas de Mi” and impactful performances in films became the hallmark of her legendary career. Rojo’s ability to breathe life into characters distinguished her as a formidable force in the entertainment industry, earning her acclaim both domestically and internationally.
A Legacy of Memorable Characters
Helena Rojo’s contributions to the world of entertainment transcend mere acting; they are immersive experiences that resonate deeply with audiences. Her portrayal of characters was not just about delivering lines; it was about infusing life into roles that left an indelible mark on the hearts of viewers. From the small screen to the silver screen, Rojo crafted characters that became an integral part of the cultural tapestry, leaving an enduring impact that extends beyond the boundaries of time.
Brave Battle Against Cancer
The revelation of Helena Rojo’s battle with liver cancer sent shockwaves through her devoted fan base. However, in the face of adversity, Rojo exhibited extraordinary bravery and composure. Her willingness to confront the aggressive illness head-on garnered admiration and respect. Throughout her courageous fight, the National Society of Actors stood in solidarity, recognizing and paying tribute to the strength she displayed, turning her struggle into an inspirational narrative.
Tributes to Helena Rojo’s Strength
A spokesperson for the National Society of Actors conveyed deep admiration for Helena Rojo’s indomitable spirit during her battle with liver cancer. Her resilience became a source of inspiration for many, transforming her personal struggle into a symbol of strength. Beyond the accolades for her on-screen performances, Rojo’s fortitude in the face of a challenging illness further solidified her place as a revered figure in the hearts of admirers.
Impact on Mexican Cultural Life
Helena Rojo’s influence extends far beyond the characters she portrayed on screen. Her legacy encompasses a profound impact on Mexican cultural life. Her storytelling prowess and ability to captivate audiences with her performances contributed to shaping the arts landscape in the country. Rojo’s work becomes a cultural touchstone, a reminder of the power of compelling narratives to transcend entertainment and leave an indelible mark on the broader cultural consciousness.
Love and Commitment to Family
While Helena Rojo’s professional achievements are indeed noteworthy, her legacy is equally defined by her unwavering commitment to family. Beyond the glitz and glamour of the entertainment industry, Rojo was known for her love and dedication to her loved ones. Her legacy, therefore, becomes a tapestry woven not only with the threads of her artistic contributions but also with the warmth and affection she shared with her family.
Profound Sense of Loss
With the passing of Helena Rojo, there is an unmistakable and profound sense of loss that reverberates among her family, friends, colleagues, and the multitude of fans who admired her work. Her absence leaves a void in the entertainment world that will be keenly felt. Rojo’s presence was more than that of a talented actress; she was a shining star whose performances brought immense joy, and her ability to connect with audiences on a deeply emotional level makes her loss even more poignant.
Remembering Helena Rojo’s Artistry
As tributes pour in from fellow actors and critics alike, Helena Rojo is remembered not merely as an actress but as an exemplary artist. Her artistry went beyond the confines of performance; it was about forging an emotional bond with the viewer. Colleagues and critics alike express sentiments of admiration for Rojo’s ability to transcend the role of a performer, leaving an everlasting impact on the hearts of those who valued her contributions to the world of acting.
Helena Rojo’s Lasting Legacy
In conclusion, Helena Rojo’s legacy is one that transcends the realms of entertainment. Enriched with love, commitment, and a body of work that spans decades, her impact on the entertainment industry and the hearts of her admirers is immeasurable. As the curtain falls on her earthly journey, Rojo’s legacy continues to shine as a guiding light, reminding us of the enduring power of storytelling and the profound influence a dedicated artist can have on the cultural fabric of a nation. In the tapestry of Mexican entertainment, Helena Rojo’s thread will forever remain vibrant and irreplaceable.
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^^ The Spinners put out a lot of good music.
The Spinners - I'll Be Around - YouTube
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The novelist Christopher Priest, who has died aged 80 after suffering from cancer, became eminent more than once over the nearly 60 years of his active working life. But while he relished success, he displayed a wry reserve about the ambiguities attending these moments in the limelight.
In 1983 he was included in the Granta Best of Young British Novelists, a 20-strong cohort, most of them – such as Martin Amis, William Boyd, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, Graham Swift and AN Wilson – significantly younger than Priest, whose career had begun almost two decades earlier, and who had at least 15 books and 50 stories in print by the early 80s. He clearly felt that it was not so much the quality of his work that delayed his “promotion” to the literary establishment, but his reluctance to deny, when asked, that he wrote science fiction.
His large body of work never fitted easily into any mould. Only in recent years has it become widely understood that the sometimes baffling ingenuity and thrust of his fiction has been of a piece, no more detachable into convenient genres than, say, Amis’s or Ishiguro’s tales of the fantastic.
Like them, he wove visions of Britain drifting into a post-empire future without secure signposts. Those stories, and the characters he let loose without a paddle, sink and dodge into realities that no longer count. Lacking much in the way of science-fiction gear, even his early work seems to describe the point that we have now arrived at.
His first novel, Indoctrinaire (1970), jaggedly initiates that scrutiny of a near-future, self-hallucinated Britain that terminated only with his last novel, Airside (2023). His next, much more mature, tale, Fugue for a Darkening Island (1972), is the first of several to envision Britain as islanded both literally and in terms of the traumatic solitude endured by those who live in it. It depicts a land devastatingly isolated by ecological collapse, threatened by uncontrollable waves of the world’s dispossessed. The tale is broken into 69 sections (or islands) in no chronological order.
Inverted World (1974), a brilliantly realised study in how perception can transform a world, and The Space Machine: A Scientific Romance (1976), a wry but genuine homage to HG Wells, step away from his central focus. But in A Dream of Wessex (1977), in some stories from An Infinite Summer (1979), and in a further novel, The Affirmation (1981), he created what he came to call The Dream Archipelago, a sequence of tales set in a variety of similar Britains, all transfigured into differing landscape-dominated worlds, sometimes enjoying a Mediterranean climate, each individual tale following paths into watery labyrinths.
The influence of Richard Jefferies’ After London: Or, Wild England (1885) is clear. The protagonist of The Glamour (1984) is so islanded from reality that he becomes literally invisible.
Born in Cheadle, Cheshire (now Greater Manchester), Christopher was the son of Millicent (nee Haslock) and Walter Priest, a senior executive in the firm of Vandome and Hart, manufacturers of weighing machines. On leaving Cheadle Hulme school at the age of 16, he became an accountancy clerk, work that he was able to leave in 1968. Much later he published the stories he wrote from this period as Ersatz Wines (2008).
The first significant hint of a way forward into his mature vision seems to have come through reading Brian Aldiss’s Non-Stop (1958), a tale whose disruptive questioning of science-fiction conventions borrowed from the US, married to a loud pessimism about humanity’s hopes of dominating any future world, was electrifying.
Snip (bit more in the link)
He is survived by Nina and his children.
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Star Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa dies at 88
Charismatic Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa, who led the Boston Symphony Orchestra for nearly 30 years and delighted audiences with his energetic style, died at his home in Tokyo aged 88, his management team announced on Friday.
Ozawa conquered the world of Western classical music, bringing an East Asian sensibility to his work with some of the world’s most celebrated orchestras, from Chicago to Boston to Vienna.
“Conductor Seiji Ozawa passed away peacefully at his home on February 6th, 2024, at the age of 88,” his management team said in a statement on its official Facebook page.
He died of heart failure and the funeral was attended by close relatives according to his wishes, the statement read.
Ozawa was born in 1935 in the Chinese province of Manchuria, then a Japanese colony, and started learning piano at elementary school.
But he broke two fingers as a teenager while playing rugby — another passion — and switched to conducting.
He moved abroad in 1959 and met some of the greatest luminaries of the classical music world, including the composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, becoming his assistant at the New York Philharmonic in the 1961-1962 season.
Ozawa went on to lead orchestras in Chicago, Toronto and San Francisco.
He was the longest-serving conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) with a 29-year stint as musical director. A concert hall was named for him at Tanglewood, the group’s summer home in western Massachusetts.
He left in 2002 to become chief conductor at the Vienna State Opera until 2010.
– ‘A musical genius’ –
The Vienna Philharmonic, with which Ozawa first collaborated at the 1966 Salzburg Festival, paid tribute to his “loving interaction with his colleagues and his charisma”.
“It was a gift to be able to go a long way with this artist, who was characterised by the highest musical standards and at the same time humility towards the treasures of musical culture,” Professor Daniel Froschauer, chairman of the Vienna Philharmonic, said in a statement.
Current BSO conductor Andris Nelsons called Ozawa “a great friend, a brilliant role model, and an exemplary musician and leader” in a tribute on X, formerly Twitter, accompanied by a photo of the pair.
“He has been an inspiration to me all my life and I will miss him dearly.”
In a separate statement from the orchestra, he recalled Ozawa’s “enthusiasm for the city and people of Boston, Tanglewood — and the Boston Red Sox!”
Marin Alsop, one of the few celebrated women conductors, said Ozawa had been a “great mentor” to her at Tanglewood.
Chad Smith, the chief executive officer of the BSO, called Ozawa “a force of nature on and off stage”.
He was “a musical genius who combined a balletic grace at the podium with a prodigious memory”, Smith said in a statement.
In-demand operatic soprano Christine Goerke said the opportunity “to make music and experience such joy and belly aching laughter with this extraordinary human being has been one of the greatest gifts of my life”.
“I am in tears this morning, but am beyond grateful for you, Seiji Ozawa. Safe home, Maestro, and thank you,” Goerke wrote on X.
Star Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa dies at 88 | Thai PBS World : The latest Thai news in English, News Headlines, World News and News Broadcasts in both Thai and English. We bring Thailand to the world
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Krautrock singer Damo Suzuki dies aged 74
Death of pioneering Japanese-born vocalist announced by fellow members of German band Can
Damo Suzuki, the Japanese-born singer who fronted pioneering krautrock group Can during the band’s creative peak, has died aged 74.
Suzuki’s death was confirmed on Saturday afternoon via Can’s Instagram. While the cause of his death was not stated, the Cologne-based musician was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2014, having first been diagnosed with the disease 30 years earlier.
“It is with great sadness that we have to announce the passing of our wonderful friend Damo Suzuki, yesterday, Friday 9th February 2024,” the message on Can’s account said.
“His boundless creative energy has touched so many over the whole world, not just with Can, but also with his all continent-spanning Network Tour. Damo’s kind soul and cheeky smile will be forever missed.”
“He will be joining Michael, Jaki and Holger for a fantastic jam!,” it added. Can founding members Jaki Liebezeit, Holger Czukay, as well as guitarist Michael Karoli all preceded Suzuki in death.
Born Kenji Suzuki in the Kanagawa prefecture south of Tokyo, the singer left Japan as a teenager to travel around Europe and live in hippy communes. In 1970 Can’s founding members Czukay and Liebezeit spotted Suzuki playing as a street musician in Munich’s bohemian Schwabing quarter and engaged him to play their first gig for them that very same night.
“There were no instructions from the band,” he recalled in an interview with Süddeutsche Zeitung in 2018. “I was meant to just walk on stage and do anything.”
His improvisational singing style – mixing words in English, Japanese and his own made-up languages – became key to Can’s sound.
Between 1970 and 1973 he led the band through its unquestionable peak, including a trio of albums as bold and revolutionary as any in the 20th-century rock canon: Tago Mago, Ege Bamyasi and Future Days. Musicians such as David Bowie, Radiohead and Talking Heads have all cited the German group as an influence.
Krautrock singer Damo Suzuki dies aged 74 | Music | The Guardian
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Steve Wright, BBC Radio presenter, dies aged 69
The radio DJ Steve Wright, whose career at the BBC lasted more than four decades, has died aged 69.
He joined the broadcaster in the 1980s and went on to host shows on BBC Radio 1 and Radio 2. The cause of death has not been disclosed.
A statement shared with BBC News by Wright’s family on Tuesday said: “It is with deep sorrow and profound regret that we announce the passing of our beloved Steve Wright.
“In addition to his son, Tom, and daughter, Lucy, Steve leaves behind his brother, Laurence, and his father, Richard.
“Also, much-loved close friends and colleagues, and millions of devoted radio listeners who had the good fortune and great pleasure of allowing Steve into their daily lives as one of the UK’s most enduring and popular radio personalities.
“As we all grieve, the family requests privacy at this immensely difficult time.”
Wright joined BBC Radio 1 in 1980 to host a Saturday evening show before moving on to Steve Wright in the Afternoon and later fronting the Radio 1 Breakfast Show from 1994 to 1995.
After a stint in commercial radio, he joined BBC Radio 2 in 1996 to host Steve Wright’s Saturday Show and Sunday Love Songs.
In 1999, he recreated Steve Wright in the Afternoon, featuring celebrity interviews, showbusiness news and “factoids” trivia. In September 2022, Wright signed off from his final Radio 2 afternoon show.
He played out with Queen’s Radio Ga Ga and its final lyrics: “You had your time, you had the power, you’ve yet to have your finest hour.” As the music faded, Wright said: “Those are the closing moments of Steve Wright in the Afternoon on Radio 2.”
Tim Davie, the BBC director general, paid tribute, saying: “All of us at the BBC are heartbroken to hear this terribly sad news.” He added: “Steve was a truly wonderful broadcaster who has been a huge part of so many of our lives over many decades.
“He was the ultimate professional – passionate about the craft of radio and deeply in touch with his listeners.”
Ken Bruce, who spent three decades presenting the mid-morning time slot on Radio 2, said he was “totally shocked” to hear about Wright’s death.
“We were planning lunch to celebrate the award of his richly deserved MBE. An outstanding and innovative broadcaster whose listeners loved him. What a loss to the world of radio,” he wrote on X.
Sara Cox told listeners during her slot on the radio station that her fellow DJs were “absolutely shattered”. She said: “It’s really hard to know what to say about the news of Steve Wright’s passing, except we are all absolutely devastated and shocked and blindsided by this news.
“Steve was an extraordinary broadcaster, a really, really kind person. He was witty, he was warm, and he was a huge, huge part of the Radio 2 family, and I know my fellow DJs will be absolutely shattered too. And I imagine you’re feeling sad, too.”
Fellow BBC Radio 2 presenter Scott Mills called Wright “one of our greatest ever broadcasters”.
The former BBC Radio 2 presenter Simon Mayo said Wright was an “amazing performer” who was “one of the greats”, while Jo Whiley called him “the broadcaster’s broadcaster”, and thanked Wright for his “support and music chat over the years”.
Dame Esther Rantzen, who was interviewed by Wright on many occasions, told PA Media: “He created a kind of club which, whether he was interviewing you or whether you were enjoying it as a listener, you looked forward to joining every day.
“It is a very rare quality and he made it sound easy.”
The broadcaster Zoe Ball wrote on X: “Life won’t be the same without you here. Love you my friend my hero.”
Wright, who was made an MBE in the 2024 new year honours list for his services to radio, continued to present Sunday Love Songs each weekend. From October 2023, he hosted the long-running Radio 2 show Pick of the Pops on Saturday afternoons.
He fronted numerous specials for the network including Your Ultimate Kylie Song and Steve Wright’s Peter Kay Christmas Special featuring an interview with the comedian.
Helen Thomas, the head of BBC Radio 2, said Wright understood the connection and companionship that radio engendered better than anyone “and we all loved him for it”.
“He was a consummate professional whose attention to detail was always second to none, and he made his guests laugh, he was fair, and he wanted to showcase them and their work in the best possible light, bringing brilliant stories to our listeners.”
Thomas added: “Steve was the first presenter I ever produced, more than 20 years ago, and I remember the pure amazement I felt, sitting opposite this legendary broadcaster whose shows I had listened to and marvelled at whilst growing up in Hull.”
Lorna Clarke, the director of BBC Music, described Wright as an “extraordinary broadcaster – someone audiences loved, and many of us looked up to”.
“He loved radio, and he loved the BBC, but most of all … he loved his audience.”
Steve Wright, BBC Radio presenter, dies aged 69 | BBC | The Guardian
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The Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has died in jail, the country’s prison service has said, in what is likely to be seen as a political assassination attributable to Vladimir Putin.
Navalny, 47, one of Putin’s most visible and persistent critics, was being held in a jail about 40 miles north of the Arctic Circle where he had been sentenced to 19 years under a “special regime”. In a video from the prison in January, he had appeared gaunt with his head shaved.
In a statement, the federal penitentiary service for the region where Navalny was incarcerated said that he had “felt unwell after a walk and almost immediately lost consciousness”.
“All necessary resuscitation measures were carried out but did not yield positive results,” the statement read. “The paramedics confirmed the death of the convict.”
The cause of death had not been established, the penitentiary service said. Navalny had previously been treated in hospital after complaining of malnourishment and other ailments due to mistreatment in the prison.
A lawyer for Navalny did not immediately confirm reports of his death, telling the Novaya Gazeta newspaper that Navalny’s family had requested him not to comment on the reports.
“Alexei had a lawyer at his place on Wednesday,” Leonid Solovyev, his laywer, told Novaya Gazeta. “Everything was normal then.”
A close aide also did not confirm the reports of Navalny’s death.
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Track and field legend Henry Rono dies at 72
Henry Rono of Kenya, who set four world records in 81 days in 1978, died in a Nairobi hospital on February 15, according to The Nation. He had turned 72 just three days earlier.
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Running Legend Henry Rono Dies at 72
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Before Barry Bonds, before Russia at the Sochi Olympics, before the past four decades of sports doping scandals and allegations, there was Don Catlin in his UCLA laboratory. Before Catlin opened the United States’ first sports anti-doping lab in 1982, “bigger, faster, stronger” was something that came from a bottle. Steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs were flooding sports and there wasn’t much of a way to stop them.
Catlin’s lab became the testing center for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and eventually performed testing for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, the NFL, Major League Baseball, the NCAA and many others. It also became the place where codes were cracked on some of the most-complicated and undetectable drugs.
Catlin died of a stroke on Jan. 16 in Los Angeles after a long battle with dementia. He was 85. His son, Oliver, who followed his father into anti-doping research, said he and his family have struggled to announce the news. How do you sum up a life that dramatically changed sports in a way most can’t see?
In a telephone interview from California, Oliver Catlin wondered if the 100 million people who will watch Sunday’s Super Bowl grasp the impact Don Catlin had with the testing program he helped run for the NFL.
“Will they understand it from the perspective that the reason we don’t have mutants and players dropping dead five minutes after stepping off the field is that we found a system to find the drugs players were taking and stop them?” he asked.
Don Catlin didn’t set out to live in a lab. He was a medical doctor assigned by the military during the Vietnam War to see if soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital were using illegal drugs. The military used Catlin’s work to punish the soldiers, which angered Catlin, his son said. He didn’t want to see the soldiers to be disciplined; he wanted them helped.
Ultimately that led him to sports. The deaths of some high-profile athletes deaths triggered his interest in anti-doping, just as the extent of East Germany’s doping program was being discovered. When Catlin finally left the UCLA lab in 2007, it had become a primary testing facility for several sports and one of the top places for anti-doping study.
“He was the pioneer of anti-doping, and I think having someone with his stature and academic background with a lab at one of the finest universities of the world, UCLA, brought credibility to the scientific side” of anti-doping, said Travis Tygart, the CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.
Tygart said Catlin’s work went beyond giving sports leagues and federations the cover of having an anti-doping program they might not seriously police, but forced those organizations “to do it the right way.”
In the early 2000s, USADA took a used syringe containing traces of a mysterious substance to Catlin’s lab. Catlin was able to discern it was a new chemical compound called tetrahydrogestrinone, THG as it came to be known. Investigators were able to trace the drug’s evolution to a northern California facility called the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, which had ties to several athletes including Bonds, baseball star Jason Giambi and sprinter Marion Jones.
Bonds and Jones have denied using PEDs from BALCO, but the discovery and resulting scandal awakened many to a sports world in which athletes had graduated from the clunky steroids of the 1980s to more sophisticated drugs that were harder to detect yet just as dangerous to their health.
Catlin had more interests in athlete safety and preserving fair competition than in exposing cheaters. Those pursuits didn’t always align with the business plans of sports leagues and organizations that often have viewed testing as a necessary annoyance and have seemed more concerned with appearances.
The longer Catlin worked in anti-doping, the more he found himself frustrated by politics. He often complained to people that many of the leagues and organizations that used his lab (sending as many as 40,000 samples to UCLA by the end of his time there) had self-interests that had little to do with the athletes he wanted to help.
As Oliver Catlin has tried to crystallize his father’s legacy while still operating the private testing and certification lab the two of them ran for the past several years, he sees as many battles with the sports establishment as he does anti-doping breakthroughs. Don Catlin, he realized, had the power to challenge those leagues and organizations, but he wonders if those who do anti-doping now will have that same authority.
“He stepped out of the boundaries constantly to say what needed to be said,” Oliver Catlin said. “My dad has actually saved the lives of Olympic athletes who would have gone down [the doping] path.”
Last week, Oliver Catlin read the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s final report on the case of Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva, who was 15 when she tested positive for the heart medication trimetazidine, which has been banned as a PED. What shocked him was not Valieva’s defense that she must have been exposed to her grandfather’s heart medicine accidentally, but rather that Valieva admitted to taking another heart drug, hypoxen, which is not banned but long has been watched by anti-doping experts.
“It’s the perfect example of why we run the [anti-doping] system,” he says. “It’s not only to stop the cheating but is also to stop the overloading of athletes with these drugs.”
