Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

In one month, both Brazil and South Africa lost game-changing icons of their respective music scene. And this little corner of the Interwebs lost a brief friend: a singer who commented on a post in which her had featured.

The Bossa Nova Boss
In the 1950s in Brazil, a father had his son committed to a psychiatric facility because the lad wanted to become a musician and was singing in a strange way. That strange singer’s voice is the first you hear on the timeless classic The Girl From Ipanema, accompanied by his guitar before his wife joins in. João Gilberto, who has died at 88, had been a pioneer of bossa nova long before that iconic song and the album from which it came, a collaboration with US jazz saxophonist Stan Getz, made the genre world famous. That collaboration cost João his marriage with Astrud Gilberto. The story of The Girl From Ipanema and a song-swarm of the song ran in 2016.

The Apartheid Slayer
Few artists have exerted such cultural influence that they could change society. English-born South African musician Johnny Clegg certainly made a difference. At the height of apartheid, Clegg fused Zulu music and dance with Western pop and rock with his band Juluka. With that, and his sincere embrace of Zulu culture, he provided his mostly white fanbase with an alternative to the racism of apartheid. In the age of South Africa’s cultural exclusion, Juluka concerts (and later those of Clegg’s next band, Savuka) were an event, comparable to a Springsteen concert. One could not emerge from the experience as a full-blown, die-hard racist (though it would be naïve to claim that all patrons were cured of all their racism). Clegg’s death of cancer was met with near-universal grief in South Africa; in a society still divided by race, Clegg’s legacy briefly united the nation. Few artists have had such power…

The Funky Neville
Just over a year ago, we still had all four Neville Brothers with us. With the death of Charles last year and in July of eldest brother and keyboardist Art Neville, only half remain. Aaron might the best-known of them, but Art probably had the best output. In the 1950s and ’60s, Art released a bunch of fine R&B/soul records either side of serving in the navy between 1958 and 1962. He the formed the first incarnation of the family-name band, The Neville Sounds, with Aaron and youngest brother Cyril, among others. Having pioneered the New Orleans funk, Art then founded The Meters (later The Funky Meters), a hugely influential instrumental funk outfit. In 1978, he and his brothers formed The Neville Brothers, whose genre-defying style won them many fans — and many others who didn’t get it. Inbetween, Art also did session work, most famously on LaBelle’s Lady Marmalade. Art was the father of Fox News anchor Arthel Neville.

The Commenter
On rare occasions do people who feature on this site comment on posts. One such artist was Jerry Lawson, the lead singer of the a cappella band The Persuasions, who has died at 75. In 2009 he thanked me for featuring The Persuasions’ version of He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother. “Thanks again for your support. Keeping the black sheep genre, the dying art of a cappella alive,” he wrote. After his long career with the Frank Zappa-discovered Peruasions which produced 22 albums until he left in 2002, Lawson founded a new a cappella group, Talk of the Town. As it happens, a couple of days before Lawson’s death, I was prepping for the Abbey Road Recovered mix that will drop in September; The Persuasions are represented on the shortlist with two songs.

The Rock & Roll Legend
If you played on Rock Around The Clock, you are by definition a rock & roll legend. So it is with Dick Richards, the drummer of Bill Haley & The Comets on the first few groundbreaking hits. When Bill Haley & The Comets became the first rock & roll act to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show on August 7, 1955, Richards manned the drums. By 1955, Richards (whose real name was Dick Boccelli) and two other Comets split from Haley’s band in a salary dispute, and formed a much less successful band called The Jodimars. After two minor hits, the group folded in 1958. Richards then became an actor. He was part of the re-assembled Comets in the 1980s, and continued to perform until recently.

The Brassman To Many
Another Dick went in Dick “Slyde” Hyde, session trombonist in the Wrecking Crew collective of session musicians. Usually as part of a brass section, Hyde backed acts like Count Basie, Woody Herman, Harry James , Elvis Presley, Van Dyke Parks, Nancy Sinatra, The Monkees, Neil Diamond, Rita Coolidge, Carole King, Arlo Guthrie, Neil Sedaka, Nancy Wilson, Kris Kristofferson, Glen Campbell, Bonnie Raitt, Thelma Houston, Steely Dan, Supertramp, Cheryl Lynn, The Pointer Sisters, Donna Summer, Jessi Colter, Jackson Browne, Earth, Wind & Fire, Helen Reddy, Liza Minelli, Frankie Valli, The Beach Boys, Tom Waits, Joe Cocker, Diane Schuur, Madonna, The Temptations, The Isley Brothers, Boz Scaggs, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, Rick Springfield, Herbie Hancock, Tom Scott, Frank Sinatra, Mary J Blige, and many others.

The Oscar Winner
This month we lost the centenarian composer and arranger Sid Ramin, who won an Oscar in 1962 for co-orchestrated the music for West Side Story. His arranged the music of many stage plays and several music. TV viewers in the US in the 1960s will know his composition of the theme of Candid Camera. Ramin also composed the easy listening classic Music To Watch Girls Go By.

The Soundtrack Man
He did not invent the compilation soundtrack album, but as heads of music at Warner Bros., Gary LeMel certainly popularised the concept, especially with the soundtrack of The Big Chill and later The Bodyguard. Earlier, he supervised the soundtrack of the Streisand version of A Star Is Born, one of the biggest-selling film-related album of all time. He also supervised the scores for projects like Batman, The Matrix, Harry Potter and Ocean’s Eleven. Before he was a movie exec, LeMel was a jazz singer who released a few singles in the 1950s and’60s. After he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2010, LeMel joined a jazz group named the Fifth Dementia, which included members diagnosed with dementia.

The Greek German
In the 1970s, my mother swooned for Greek-born schlager singer Costa Cordalis, with his flowing black locks, sporty 1,88m tall built, winning Colgate smile and easily escaping chest hair. Cordalis also had an attractive personality which compensated for the banal schlager tunes he sang. But in 1974 behind his happy personality there was the pain of being stateless. Cordalis, who came to West-Germany in 1961 at the age of 16, couldn’t get German citizenship, but had also lost his Greek citizenship because he declined to be drafted into the Greek army, then under fascist control. With the fall of the regime in 1975, that problem was solved. Cordalis remained a cultural icon in Germany, also as an actor playing a Greek tavern owner on the soapie Lindenstrasse. In 2004 he won the German version of I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here. Two decades earlier, in 1985, the then 40-year-old represented Greece in the Nordic World Ski Championships in Innsbruck. He came last — but still was the national champion of the country to which he just a decade earlier couldn’t return.

Paul McCallum, bassist of The Wombles, on June 26
The Wombles – The Womble Shuffle (1975)

Sid Ramin, 100, composer, arranger, conductor, on July 1
Barbra Streisand – Draw Me A Circle (1964, as arranger)
Andy Williams – Music To Watch Girls By (1967, as composer)
Sid Ramin – Stiletto (1969)

Oss Kröher, 91, German singer-songwriter, half of duo Hein & Oss, on July 1
Hein & Oss – Brüder, zur Sonne, zur Freiheit (1975)

Costa Cordalis, 75, Greek-born schlager singer, on July 2
Costa Cordalis – Carolina, komm (1973)

Duncan Lamont, 87, Scottish jazz saxophonist, on July 2
Duncan Lamont – Lazy Sunday (1973)

Paolo Vinaccia, 65, jazz percussionist, on July 5

João Gilberto, 88, Brazilian singer-songwriter, guitarist, bossa nova pioneer, on July 6
João Gilberto – Anjo Cruel (1951)
Getz/Gilberto – The Girl From Ipanema (1963)
João Gilberto – Wave (1977)
João Gilberto – Da Cor Do Pecado (2000)

Thommy Gustafsson, 71, keyboardist of Swedish dansband Sven-Ingvars, on July 6

Yannis Spathas, 68, guitarist of Greek blues-rock band Socrates, on July 6
Socrates Drank the Conium – Live In The Country (1972)

Gary LeMel, 80, jazz singer and Warners Bros. head of music, on July 6
Gary LeMel – What’s The Use Of My Cryin’ (1957)

Martin Charnin, 84, lyricist and theatre director, on July 6
Nancy Wilson – Ten Good Years (1965, as lyricist)
Andrea McArdle – The Hard-Knock Life (1977, as lyricist)

Jonathan Hodge, 78, English musician, composer and jingles writer, on July 7
Scott Fitzgerald & Yvonne Keeley – If I Had Words (1978, as writer)

James Henke, 65, music journalist, curator of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, on July 8

Jerry Lawson, 75, singer with a cappella band The Persuasions, on July 10
The Persuasions – It’s Alright (1970)
The Persuasions – I Could Never Love Another (1971)
The Persuasions – Tired And My Soul (2000)

Dick Richards, 95, drummer of Bill Haley & His Comets, on July 12
Bill Haley & The Comets – Shake Rattle And Roll (1954)
The Jodimars – Well Now Dig This (1955)

Arno Marsh, 91, jazz saxophonist, on July 12
Woody Herman and The New Third Herd – Teressita (1952, on tenor sax)

Russell Smith, 70, singer of country-rock band Amazing Rhythm Aces, on July 12
Amazing Rhythm Aces – Third Rate Romance (1975, also as writer)

Dick “Slide” Hyde, 83, trombonist, on July 15
Claudia Lennear – Goin’ Down (1973, on trombone)
Steely Dan – Deacon Blues (1977, on trombone)
Supertramp – Breakfast In America (1979, on tuba)
Joe Cocker – You Can Leave Your Hat On (1986, on trombone)

Johnny Clegg, 66, South African singer and cultural icon, on July 16
Juluka – Scatterlings Of Africa (1982)
Johnny Clegg and Savuka – Asimbonanga (1987)
Johnny Clegg and Savuka – The Crossing (1993)
Johnny Clegg feat. Jesse Clegg – I’ve Been Looking (2017)

Pat Kelly, 70, Jamaican reggae singer, on July 16
Pat Kelly – How Long Will It Take (1969)

Bill Vitt, session drummer, on July 16
Jerry Garcia & Howard Wales – South Side Strut (1971, on drums)

Ruud Jacobs, 81, Dutch jazz bassist and producer, on July 18

Bob Frank, 75, folk singer-songwriter, on July 18
Bob Frank – She Pawned Her Diamond For Some Gold (1972)

Anthony Smith, 61, keyboardist of Australian new wave band Flowers, on July 19
Flowers – Icehouse (1980)

Inger Berggren, 85, Swedish schlager singer, on July 19

Art Neville, 81, singer, keyboardist, songwriter with The Meters, Neville Brothers, on July 22
Art Neville – Cha Dooky-Doo (1957)
Art Neville – All These Things (1962) (1962)
The Meters – Look-Ka Py Py (1970)
LaBelle – All Girl Band (1974, on organ)
Neville Brothers – My Blood (1989)

Daniel Rae Costello, 58, Samoan guitarist, on July 22

John Ferriter, 59, singer, songwriter, talent scout, TV producer, on July 25

Ras G, 39, hip hop DJ and producer, on July 29
Ras G – We Fly Together (2019)

Lol Mason, lead singer of UK bands City Boy, The Maisonettes, on July 30
City Boy – 5.7.0.5. (1978)
The Maisonettes – Heartache Avenue (1982)

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