The RIP Famous Person Thread

[beachbound]

[beachbound]

[russellsimpson]

Great icon of Canadian music he will be missed but he had very good innings. He battled with alcohol for years and it damn near killed him a couple of times.RIP

[russellsimpson]

[beachbound]

Great icon of Canadian music he will be missed but he had very good innings. He battled with alcohol for years and it damn near killed him a couple of times.RIP

Incredible career. He was also covered by a lot of great artists, including Bob Dylan, Barbra Streisand, and Elvis Presley, to name a few.

[Norton]

Folk singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot dies at 84

TORONTO (AP) — Gordon Lightfoot, the folk singer-songwriter known for “If You Could Read My Mind” and “Sundown” and for songs that told tales of Canadian identity, died Monday. He was 84.

Representative Victoria Lord said the musician died at a Toronto hospital. His cause of death was not immediately available.

One of the most renowned voices to emerge from Toronto’s Yorkville folk club scene in the 1960s, Lightfoot recorded 20 studio albums and penned hundreds of songs, including “Carefree Highway,” “Early Morning Rain” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

In the 1970s, Lightfoot garnered five Grammy nominations, three platinum records and nine gold records for albums and singles. He performed in well over 1,500 concerts and recorded 500 songs.

He toured late into his life. Just last month he canceled upcoming U.S. and Canadian shows, citing health issues.

Folk singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot dies at 84 | AP News

[Norton]

[beachbound]

Folk singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot dies at 84

Thanks, I hadn’t heard.

[russellsimpson]

[russellsimpson]

[Happy As Larry]

Linda Lewis, singer and famed backing vocalist, dies aged 72



Britishsongwriter was known for her five-octave vocal range and work as a backing singer for the likes of David Bowie, Rod Stewart and YusufIslam
LindaLewis, the British singer-songwriter whose career spanned more than four decades, has died at the age of 72.
Herfamily confirmed her death on Wednesday night, with her sister Dee Lewis Clay sharing the news on social media.




“It is with the greatest sadness and regret we share the news that our beloved beautiful sister Linda Lewis passed away today peacefully at her home,” she wrote. “The family asks that you respect our privacy and allow us to grieve at this heartbreaking time.”
Known for a five-octave vocal range, which saw her compared to Minnie Riperton and Mariah Carey, Lewis enjoyed both solo success in the1970s and a long career of providing backing vocals for artists including David Bowie and Rod Stewart.
Born Linda Ann Fredericks in West Ham in 1950, Lewis attended stage school and dabbled in acting, appearing as a screaming fan in the first Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night in 1964. When she signed to Polydor, she adopted Lewis as her surname in honour of singer Barbara Lewis. Her sisters, Dee Lewis and Shirley Lewis, also singers, and their mother would all later use the surname too.

A self-taught guitarist and keyboard player, she appeared at the first Glastonbury festival in 1970 and had four top-40 hits throughout the next decade – the first coming with Rock-a-Doodle-Doo which reached No 15 in the UK in 1973.
Her biggest hit came with It’s In His Kiss – a cover of a 1963 song later made famous by Cher as The Shoop Shoop Song.

She lived with a group of artists and musicians in a commune in Hampstead, in a house that was often visited by Yusuf Islam, then known as Cat Stevens, as well as Marc Bolan and Elton John.

She also toured with Islam and dated him on and off for several years, once writing that they fell out after he converted to Islam. “To put it kindly, he was searching for greater meaning in life. To put it bluntly, he was becoming a pain,” she wrote.
She married fellow musician Jim Cregan in 1977, but they divorced three years later, with Lewis writing: “We were apart too much –especially after Jim joined Rod Stewart’s band – and we were both unfaithful.”

Among the other big names for whom she provided backing vocals were Bowie(for his Aladdin Sane album) as well as Stewart, Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel, Rick Wakeman, Joan Armatrading and Jamiroquai.

Her song Old Smokey was sampled by rapper Common in his 2005 hit Go!, which was produced by Kanye West. She also collaborated with Basement Jaxx on track Close Your Eyes.

She continued to perform until the end, with her last track Earthling, a collaboration with UK band the Paracosmos, released in March this year.
“When I look back, I realise I’ve lived an extraordinarily rich life,”Lewis wrote in her memoirs. “Would I do it all again, given a chance? No. Would I do some of it again? Certainly.”

In2004, she married music agent Neil Warnock, who survives her.

Linda Lewis, singer and famed backing vocalist, dies aged 72 | Music | The Guardian

[david44]

Sweet sounds from a gentler era of folk music RIP GL

[beachbound]

Surprisingly, for all his great music, he never won a Grammy.

[DrWilly]

Andy Rourke of the Smiths. Only 59

Andy Rourke, bassist for British rock group The Smiths, dies from cancer aged 59 - ABC News

[misskit]

Jim Brown, football great, actor, civil rights activist, dies

Jim Brown, regarded by many as the greatest football player of all time who quit the game at the height of his career and became a successful Hollywood actor and influential activist at the peak of the civil rights era, has died at his home in Los Angeles.


Brown died late Thursday at 87. His wife Monique was by his side, a family spokeswoman said.


A multitalented athlete cast in the mold of the legendary Jim Thorpe — he’s in three halls of fame — Brown was known best as a football player. Perhaps the football player. A fullback for the Cleveland Browns, he stepped away from the game after only nine seasons while working on the set of “The Dirty Dozen,” saying he needed greater mental stimulation in his life.

MORE Jim Brown, football great, actor, civil rights activist, dies at 87 - Los Angeles Times

[Happy As Larry]

Pete Brown, countercultural poet, singer and Cream lyricist, dies aged 82

British poet who wrote lyrics for Sunshine of Your Love, White Room and many more also had acclaimed solo career
Pete Brown, a cult figure in British poetry, rock, psychedelia and rhythm and blues who wrote lyrics for many of Cream’s classic songs, has died aged 82. He had been living with what he recently described as “various forms of cancer” for a number of years.
The family of his long-term late collaborator Jack Bruce wrote on social media: “We are extremely saddened to learn of the death of Jack’s long term friend and writing partner Pete Brown who passed away last night. We extend our sincere condolences to Pete’s wife Sheridan and Pete’s children as well as all his family and friends. Love from the Bruce family.”

Brown will perhaps best be remembered for his longstanding creative partnership with Bruce, which began in 1965 and lasted until the latter’s death in 2014. Brown was invited by drummer Ginger Baker to help finish the debut single by Cream, the psych-rock band also featuring Bruce and Eric Clapton. Brown would go on to write lyrics for Cream songs such as their first Top 20 hit I Feel Free, the hippy anthem Sunshine of Your Love, and White Room, its darkly tripped-out lyrics a source of fascination to generations of listeners.

Dance the Night Away, meanwhile, was inspired by “sex and dancing [which] anchored me a great deal and got me through that time when I was having panic attacks” in the wake of a bad drugs experience, he later explained.

Brown remained Bruce’s go-to lyricist for most of his solo albums after Cream disbanded in 1968, from his acclaimed debut Songs for a Tailor, a UK Top 10 hit in 1969, to Silver Rails in 2014…………………………..

Pete Brown, countercultural poet, singer and Cream lyricist, dies aged 82 | Music | The Guardian

[Happy As Larry]

Martin Amis, era-defining British novelist, dies aged 73

The celebrated author of Money and London Fields, whose works defined the 80s and 90s literary scene, died of oesophageal cancer on Friday at his home in Florida

Martin Amis, the influential author of era-defining novels including Money and London Fields, and the memoir Experience, has died at the age of 73 at his home at Lake Worth in Florida . His wife, Isabel Fonseca, said that the cause was cancer of the oesophagus.

Amis was among the celebrated group of novelists including Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan and Julian Barnes, whose works defined the British literary scene in the 1980s.

His 1984 novel Money was named by Robert McCrum in the Guardian as among the 100 best novels written in English. Money, wrote McCrum, was a “zeitgeist book that remains one of the dominant novels of the 1980s”.
He added: “The thrill of Money, which is turbo-charged with savage humour from first to last page, is Amis’s prodigal delight in contemporary Anglo-American vernacular.”

The novelist’s use of style and voice was feted by critics, with Veronica Geng writing in her New York Times review that Money was “like a tale taken down in a trance by a medium in the grip of a spirit control, one of those prankish controls waxing autobiographical from a spectral barstool”.
…………….

Martin Amis, era-defining British novelist, dies aged 73 | Martin Amis | The Guardian

[harrybarracuda]

“like a tale taken down in a trance by a medium in the grip of a spirit control, one of those prankish controls waxing autobiographical from a spectral barstool”.

Well that sounds like a cracking read.

[cyrille]

It is, but Veronica Geng sounds like a total twat.

[Bob Mason]

Rolf Harris - Laid To Rest. (Good enough for the dirty old bugger!)

Rolf Harris: Serial abuser and ex-entertainer dies aged 93 - BBC News

[qwerty]

I'm really feeling my age now. I read lots of books by Kingsley Amis, Martin's father!

[PAG]

Rolf Harris - Laid To Rest. (Good enough for the dirty old bugger!)

Rolf Harris: Serial abuser and ex-entertainer dies aged 93 - BBC News

[dirk diggler]

Irish actor Ray Stevenson has died at the age of 58.


The actor is known for starring in films including King Arthur, Punisher: War Zone and Marvel’s Thor films. He is also due to star in the forthcoming Star Wars spin-off series Ahsoka.
Stevenson died on Sunday (21 May), his publicist confirmed to Variety. A cause of death has not been given. His former co-stars, including Harry Potter actor Matthew Lewis and Rome’s James Purefoy, have led tributes to the actor.







Marvel fans will recognise Stevenson from his role in 2008’s Punisher: War Zone opposite Dominic West and Doug Hutchinson.


Stevenson was the third actor to portray Frank Castle (aka Punisher) on screen, following in the footsteps of Dolph Lundgren in 1989 and Thomas Jane in 2004. Jon Bernthal later portrayed the character in Netflix’s Daredevil and The Punisher shows.

[harrybarracuda]

Tina Turner dead at 83: Singer dies at home in Switzerland after long illness

Tina Turner dead at 83: Singer dies at home in Switzerland after long illness | Daily Mail Online

[misskit]

Sad news. A great entertainer was Tina. Just as hot as a woman could be.

RIP