Sometimes the Reaper creates little synergies to tantalise those on the death watch. There was such little moment on July 26, when the Ghanaian singer-songwriter Daddy Lumba died. His song Mpempem Do Me was included in a list of King Charles III’s Top 20 favourite songs (yup, my reaction was the same as yours).
You’d expect no links from the popular Ghanaian musician to the British band The Bollock Brothers, whose member Jock McDonald died the same day in a drowning. But there is a royal link: in 1983 The Bollock Brothers released a new wave cover of The Sex Pistols God Save The Queen (I like to imagine that song is #21 on the king’s eclectic list) — on the vocals of that single was Michael Fagan, the intruder who famously stole a bottle of wine from Buckingham Palace’s cellar and visited Chuck’s mom in her bedroom.
July was a hectic month, after a pretty sedate start. There are ten write-ups — it could have been more.
The Trailblazer
Her material was so much of its time that it dated quickly, so it’s easy to forget that Connie Francis was one of the most commercially successful pop singers of the late 1950s and early ’60s — not just in the US but also in places like the UK, Germany (where she had a series of hits in German), Japan (ditto), Australia and Italy — and a trailblazer for female singers.
Born Concetta Franconero in New Jersey in 1937, Connie was pushed into music by her father and landed a series of talent show spots and minor recording deals before anything stuck. Her breakthrough came in 1958 with Who’s Sorry Now?, a countrified 1920s number which she had recorded under protest.
That hit opened the floodgates. Until 1962, she had 15 US Top 10 hits, including My Happiness, Lipstick On Your Collar, Among My Souvenirs, Mama, Many Tears Ago, My Heart Has A Mind Of Its Own (a #1 hit), Where The Boys Are, Don’t Break The Heart That Loves You (another #1), Vacation and My Heart Has A Mind Of Its Own. In the UK she had ten Top 10 hits, including two #1s (Who’s Sorry Now and Stupid Cupid/Carolina Moon).
Her music crossed genres, from country to rock & roll, teeny pop, schlager, Italian ballads, novelty songs, twist and even jazz. She also had a sharp business instinct, choosing her own material and managing her career, claiming an unusual level of control for a young woman in her era.
By the mid-1960s, the hits stopped coming, and Connie’s career was derailed in the 1970s by personal trauma and illness, including a violent sexual assault and vocal surgery. She made sporadic comebacks, delighting her loyal fanbase.
In May this year her fairly obscure 1962 song Pretty Little Baby went viral on TikTok; illness prevented the singer from returning to the limelight.
The Prince of Darkness
Deaths of people like Ozzy Osbourne present me with a difficulty: What do I say about a true rock icon, but one whose bat-eating stage shtick didn’t excite me? Whose reality TV persona was wholly unappealing to me (even if, with his brain-fried persona, he was the best character on the sorry thing) and helped ring in the celebrity cult scripted reality show disease? A man who spent the last weeks of his life calling for fellow musicians to be cancelled over their protest against the bombing of civilians and enforced famine?
So I’ll have to find nice things to say about Ozzy. Well, Black Sabbath were massively influential in establishing heavy metal as a genre. Unlike many other metal acts, Ozzy didn’t become, ahem, ossified but was able to adapt to progress, without compromising his musical metal ethic. He was a showman who brought many people joy. He was a fundraiser for charitable causes; his all-star farewell concert on July 5 alone raised $200 million for various charities, apparently the highest-grossing charity concert of all time (at least when not adjusted for inflation; Live Aid’s tally of $127 million in 1985 would be worth around $380 million today). And he did a pretty good job of dying his hair.
Then there is this anecdote, told by Nick Beggs of Kajagoogoo, as appeared on Popbitch: “I was performing at a rock/pop festival in Europe in the 80s and staying at a hotel with all the other luminaries of the day. I recall seeing Ozzy Osbourne and Bruce Dickinson talking in the hotel bar that evening. Becoming overwhelmed by my fan-like mentality I helplessly ran up to Ozzy and spouted, ‘Oh my God! Ozzy Osbourne! I can’t believe it, you were my biggest influence!’
“To which he replied: ‘Fuck off! I’m not taking the blame for that crap.’”
The Feel Good Man
If you are feeling a bit down, Chuck Mangione’s 1978 crossover hit Feels So Good will lift you up, especially the long LP version, which starts slow and builds up to its endorphins-releasing groove.
The jazz fusion flugelhornist, who has died at the age of 84, is sometimes lumped in with the smooth jazz crowd, but that is doing injustice to a man who was serious about jazz, and had made his jazz chops long before smooth jazz was a thing.
Born in Rochester, New York, in 1940, Mangione began his musical career alongside his pianist brother Gap, forming the Jazz Brothers and recording several albums in the early 1960s, including a 1960 debut produced by Cannonball Adderley. His early career also saw him playing the trumpet as a member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, a university of hard bop for many future jazz stars.
By the late 1960s, Mangione graduated to a more melodic, orchestral sound. His 1970 album Friends And Love was recorded live with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. Mangione’s song Chase The Clouds Away was used at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, and his fusion-classic Give It All You Got was the theme of the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. He performed it live at the globally televised closing ceremony.
The pretentious jazz purists might have scoffed at Mangione’s fusion sound, but that sound took a jazz instrumental into the US Billboard Top 10. Bring jazz to the masses.
Mangione’s likeable image, all smiles and wide-brimmed hat, added to his celebrity which found expression in recurring appearances, in animation, on the hit TV series King Of The Hill, complete with his flugelhorn and upbeat persona.
The Jazz Singer
One of the most unusual chapters in British music ended with the death at 97 of jazz singer Cleo Laine. Born Clementina Dinah Campbell in 1927 to a Jamaican father and English mother, she was a hairdresser before she was discovered by her future husband, Johnny Dankworth. That was in 1951; their musical partnership would last for almost than 50 years.
They married in 1958, staying together until his death in 2010. The day Johnny died, Laine played a concert at The Stables, a music centre in England she and Dankworth had founded. The freshly-widowed singer finished her show, and announcing her husband’s death only at the end.
Laine’s low contralto with an unusually wide range made her a natural fit for jazz, but she also branched out into musical theatre, including the lead in a production of Kurt Weill’s opera/ballet The Seven Deadly Sins and, in 1971, a successful run as Julie in Show Boat in London. She also acted in straight plays.
Laine sang jazz standards and original material, and even set Shakespeare’s sonnets to music. In 1974 she broke through in the US, with a live album recorded at Carnegie Hall cementing her place in the jazz firmament there. She went on to record collaboration albums with the likes of Ray Charles, John Williams, Mel Tormé, Dudley Moore, and others.
Laine recorded more than a hundred albums and apparently is the only woman to have been nominated for a Grammy in jazz, pop and classical categories. She continued performing into her nineties and was made a Dame in 1997.
The Percussionist
Like almost all readers, I had never heard of Portuguese percussionist and bassist Luís Jardim until his death on July 4, his 75th birthday. But we all have heard his work on countless 1980s hits. One of Trevor Horn’s crew — Jardim’s wife was one of the singers on Video Killed The Radio Star — he played on ABC’s Lexicon Of Love album, on Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s debut album, Malcolm McLaren’s Duck Rock, Grace Jones’ Slave To The Rhythm (including the bass on the title track) and others.
He also played, mostly on percussions, on UK hits like Wham!’s Bad Boys, Mezzoforte’s Garden Party, Evelyn Thomas’ High Energy, Elvis Costello’s I Want To Be Loved, Madness’ Michael Caine and Uncle Sam, The Dream Academy’s Life In A Northern Town, Miquel Brown’s So Many Men So Little Time and Close To Perfection, Ready For The World’s Oh Sheila, David Bowie’s Absolute Beginners, The Blow Monkeys’ Diggin’ Your Scene, The The’s Heartland, Prefab Sprout’s Cars And Girls and Hey Manhattan, Mike + The Mechanics’ The Living Years, Then Jericho’s Big Area, Hothouse Flowers Don’t Go, Holly Johnson’s Americanos, The Rolling Stones’ Mixed Emotions, Swing Out Sister’s You On Mind (and possibly Breakout), Wet Wet Wet’s Sweet Surrender, The Chimes’ I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, Tears For Fears’ Sowing The Seeds Of Love and Woman In Chains… and that’s just in the 1980s!
Apart from the above, Jardim also played for the likes of — deep breath now — Tina Turner, Seal, Spandau Ballet, Oleta Adams, The Neville Brothers, Dusty Springfield, Shakatak, Londonbeat, Elaine Paige, Five Star, Soul II Soul, Barry Manilow, Yes, Paul McCartney, Joan Armatrading, They Might Be Giants, Björk, The Bee Gees, Duran Duran, Lisa Stansfield, Annie Lennox, Angélique Kidjo, Bryan Ferry, Boy George, Gabrielle, Asia, Ray Charles, Baaba Maal, Khadja Nin, Tanita Tikaram, Eric Clapton, Basia, Robbie Williams, Lighthouse Family, Steps, Tom Jones, Boyzone, Pulp, Nina Hagen, Udo Lindenberg, Eros Ramazzotti, Catatonia, Garbage, Diana Ross, Rod Stewart, Johnny Hallyday, Mariah Carey, Céline Dion, Vanessa-Mae, Andrea Bocelli, Will Young, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Starsailor, Elton John, Pet Shop Boys , John Legend, K’s Choice, Juluka, Cyndi Lauper, Gloria Estefan, Katie Melua, The Mighty Lemondrops, Modern Romance, Jeff Beck, Marillion, Roddy Frame, Billy Idol, John Barrowman, Coldplay and more…
The Riff Man
On the same day as Osbourne (and Mangione), the creator of one of rock’s greatest guitar riffs died. The riff is that of Golden Earring’s Radar Love (which also has one of the greatest-ever bass riffs), and its creator was George Kooymans. The guitarist and occasional lead singer co-wrote the signature song of the Dutch band, and wrote their only US Top 10 hit, 1982’s Twilight Zone.
Golden Earring broke through internationally with 1973’s Radar Love, but by then had been veterans of the Dutch charts, having scored 16 Top 10 hits, including one chart-topper, since 1965. They’d add 13 more, charting regularly well into the new millennium.
George Kooymans’ ALS illness ended the band’s career in 2021. Remarkably, the line-up remained unchanged from 1969 onwards, and Kooymans is the first of them to pass away. In January the band reformed in Rotterdam for a one-off gig — without the ill Kooyman but supported by an array of celebs — to raise funds for ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) research. Due to popular demand, they ended up playing five shows.
The Wordsmith
With the death of Alan Bergman at 99 — two months short of his 100th — all of the prolific songwriting trio comprising him, wife Marilyn Bergman and French composer Michel Legrande are now gone. Marilyn died in January 2022 (after 63 years of marriage) and Legrande in January 2019.
The Bergmans wrote the lyrics for Legrande compositions such as The Windmills Of Your Mind and Patti Austin & James Ingram’s How Do You Keep The Music Playing. They also wrote, mostly for movies, with composers like Quincy Jones, Maurice Jarre, Marvin Hamlisch, Henry Mancini, Dave Grusin, Quincy Jones, John Williams and others.
Their hit songs include Frank Sinatra’s Nice ‘N Easy, Dean Martin’s Sleep Warm, Ray Charles’ In The Heat Of The Night, Barbra Streisand’s The Way We Were, Neil Diamond & Barbra Streisand’s You Don’t Bring Me Flowers (also a country hit for Helen Cornelius, who died the day after Bergman), Steven Bishop’s It Might Be You, and Michael Jackson’s Someone In the Dark (from the E.T. album).
They also co-wrote the theme songs for the TV shows Maude, Good Times, The Sandy Duncan Show and Alice.
The Rock & Roller
The last surviving original members of rock & roll legends Danny & The Juniors has died. Frank Maffei was the vocal band’s baritone and second tenor singer. The foursome had only two big hits in 1957-58 — the chart-topping At The Hop and the prescient Rock And Roll Is Here To Stay — but those two songs are an integral part of the rock & roll story of the 1950s. Danny & The Juniors cracked the Top 30 one more time in 1960, with the cash-in Twistin’ U.S.A., followed by a few minor hits, with Oo-La-La-Limbo’s #99 position bookending the band’s charting career in 1962.
But the Juniors remained a going concern until 2019, when Maffei retired after colleagues Joe Terry and David White died within weeks of one another in 2019. Frontman Danny Rapp died in 1983.
The Spinal Tapper
In the film, Spinal Tap’s keyboard player Viv Savage died when the grave of former drummer Mick Shrimpton exploded due to methane gas build-up. Now the English musician who played Savage, David Kaff, has died — peacefully in his sleep at 79, no methane-filled grave in sight. Kaff’s time with Spinal Tap, the spoof metal band of the 1984 mockumentary film of the same name, was brief — by the time Spinal Tap released a Christmas single later that year, Kaff had left the band (methane explosion, so see).
All members of Spinal Tap played their own instruments, but unlike the three frontmen — played by Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest and Michael McKean — Kaff and drummer R.J. Parnell were professional musicians. Kaff, then going by the surname Kaffinetti (his real name was David Franklin Ewer), had been a member of the prog-rock band Rare Bird, who had a hit with 1969’s Sympathy (a cover by Marillion became a hit in 1991). Rare Bird split in 1974.
After Rare Bird, Kaff was a member of a funk-rock band called Fresh, which released three albums between 1977 and 1978.
Kaff also backed Chuck Berry on his UK tour which yielded the hit single My Ding-A-Ling.
The Satirist
The career of satirist Tom Lehrer, who has died at 97, was quite brief but influential, covering just over a decade of active public performance. The mathematician began writing and performing satirical songs while a student at Harvard in the 1940s. His self-produced and self-released 1953 album Songs By Tom Lehrer gained a cult following among students and academics for its dry, literate wit and skewering of politics, education and middle-class pieties — an antidote to the war-mongering, witch-hunting, repressed and repressive, consumerist and hypocritical USA of the 1950s.
Lehrer’s style was simple — just his vocals and a piano — drawing from the traditions of musical theatre, Noël Coward and European cabaret. His lyrics were smart, with clever rhymes, classical references and acerbic punchlines, often delivered in rapid fire.
His 1965 live album That Was the Year That Was — based on the US edition of the satirical TV show That Was The Week That Was, for which he wrote songs — captured the mood of the Cold War and the sexual revolution with a mixture of cynicism and comic detachment. He later contributed songs to the UK satirical show The Frost Report.
Despite critical acclaim and a loyal fanbase, Lehrer withdrew from public performance in the early 1970s. He returned to teaching mathematics full-time, saying that the songwriting had been only a sideline.
Lehrer had no illusions that his songs made much of a difference. In 2000 he said: “I don’t think this kind of thing has an impact on the unconverted, frankly. It’s not even preaching to the converted; it’s titillating the converted.” An interesting debate can be had whether today the same might be said about Colbert, Stewart, Kimmel, Oliver, Meyers et al (I’m open to persuasion either way, but I’m grateful for the voices of Colbert, Stewart, Kimmel, Oliver, Meyers et al).
Lehrer’s most famous quote is, “Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel peace prize.” Oh, Tom, for the real death of political satire, wait until Mr Epstein’s best friend arrives on the scene!
As always, this post is reproduced in illustrated PDF format in the package, which also includes my personal playlist of the featured tracks. PW in comments.
Derek Fuhrman, 44, singer and songwriter, on June 27
Omnisoul – You Say (2003, as member on lead vocals and as writer)
Brendan Berg, 42, bassist of Canadian indie band Royal Canoe, car crash on July 1
Royal Canoe – Summersweat (2012)
Jimmy Swaggart, 90, televangelist, hypocrite, war crime funder, gospel singer, on July 1
Dany Lademacher, 75, Belgian guitarist (Herman Brood, The Radios), on July 3
The Radios – She Goes Nana (1992, as member)
Mickey MacConnell, c.77, Irish musician and songwriter, on July 3
Luís Jardim, 75, Portuguese percussionist and bassist, on July 4
Mezzoforte – Garden Party (1983, on percussions)
Grace Jones – Slave To The Rhythm (1985, on bass)
Blow Monkeys – Diggin’ Your Scene (1986, on percussions)
Khadja Nin – Mama Lusiya (1994, on percussions)
Mark Snow, 78, film and TV composer, on July 4
Triple X – The Truth (X-Files Theme) (1995, as composer)
Kevin Riddles, 68, bassist of metal bands Tytan and Angel Witch, on July 4
Young Noble, 47, rapper with hip hop group Outlawz, suicide on July 4
2Pac feat. E.D.I. and Young Noble – Bomb First (1996, also as co-writer)
Ossi Huber, 70, Austrian singer-songwriter, on July 6
Antti Tammilehto, 70, Finnish rock bassist (The Boys), on July 6
Mosie Burks, 92, gospel singer, on July 7
René Pascal, 85, German schlager singer, on July 7
Tim Cronin, 63, drummer, bassist of rock band Monster Magnet (1989-90), on July 8
Vinnie Riccitelli, 99, jazz saxophonist and pianist, on July 9
Vinnie Riccitelli Octet – This Heart Of Mine (2021)
Norman Marshall Villeneuve, 87, Canadian jazz drummer, on July 9
Timothy Goins, 61, bluegrass multi-instrumentalist and songwriter, on July 10
Iris Williams, 79, Welsh singer, announced July 11
Iris Williams – He Was Beautiful (Cavatina) (1979)
Raymond Guiot, 94, French jazz and classical musician, composer, announced July 11
Toni Cruz, 78, Spanish singer and TV producer, on July 11
David Kaff(inetti), 79, British musician, songwriter and actor (This Is Spinal Tap), on July 11
Rare Bird – Somebody’s Watching (1973, as member on keyboards)
Fresh – Long Lost Love Affair (1977, as member on keyboards)
Spinal Tap – Stonehenge (1984, as member on keyboards)
Dave Cousins, 85, singer, musician, songwriter with English rock band Stawbs, on July 13
Strawbs – Lay Down (1972, on lead vocals and as writer)
Matt Keil, bass guitarist of punk band Comeback Kid, announced July 14
Billy April, 61, producer, songwriter with UK dance/remix group Drizabone, announced July 15
Drizabone – Real Love (1991, also as co-writer and co-producer)
Chris Faiumu, New Zealand reggae producer and musician, on July 16
Connie Francis, 87, pop singer and actress, on July 16
Connie Francis – Who’s Sorry Now (1957)
Connie Francis – Lipstick On Your Collar (1959)
Connie Francis – Where The Boys Are (1960)
Eero Raittinen, 80, singer of Finnish rock & roll band The Boys, on July 16
Alan Bergman, 99, songwriter, on July 17
Barbra Streisand – The Way We Were (1973, as co-writer)
Neil Diamond – You Don’t Bring Me Flowers (1977, original version, as co-writer)
Patti Austin & James Ingram – How Do You Keep The Music Playing (1982, as co-writer)
Daphne Walker, 94, New Zealand Maori singer, on July 17
Robbie Pardlo, 46, singer and songwriter with R&B band City High, on July 17
City High feat. Eve – Caramel (2001, as co-writer)
Laura Vinson, 78, Canadian folk and country singer-songwriter, on July 17
Hal Galper, 87, jazz pianist, composer and bandleader, on July 18
Hal Galper Quintet – I Can’t Get Started (1977)
Florência, 86, Portuguese singer, on July 18
Helen Cornelius, 83, country singer-songwriter, on July 18
Jim Ed Brown & Helen Cornelius – Saying Hello, Saying I Love You, Saying Goodbye (1976)
Aldo Monges, 83, Argentine folksinger, on July 19
Frank Maffei, 85, singer with rock & roll band Danny & The Juniors, on July 19
Danny & The Juniors – At The Hop (1957)
Danny & The Juniors – Rock & Roll Is Here To Stay (1958)
Bobby Bright, 80, half of Australian beat duo Bobby & Laurie and TV host, on July 19
Bobby & Laurie – I Belong With You (1964)
Owen Gray, 86, Jamaican reggae musician, on July 20
Owen Gray – Patricia (1960, first record released on the Island label)
Preta Gil, 50, Brazilian singer-songwriter and actress, on July 20
Preta Gil – Sinais de Fogo (2003)
Eamon Downes, 56, DJ with British dance act Liquid, on July 21
Liquid – Sweet Harmony (2001)
John Palmer, 82, English prog rock musician and composer, announced July 21
Family – In My Own Time (1971, as member on keyboards)
Ozzy Osbourne, 76, English rock musician, songwriter, TV personality, on July 22
Black Sabbath – Paranoid (1970, as member on lead vocals and as co-writer)
Black Sabbath – Never Say Die (1978, as member on lead vocals and as co-writer)
Ozzy Osbourne – Crazy Train (1981)
George Kooymans, 77, guitarist, singer, songwriter of Dutch rock band Golden Earring, on July 22
Golden Earrings – Sound Of The Screaming Day (1967, also as co-writer)
Golden Earring – Radar Love (1973, also as co-writer)
Golden Earring – Twilight Zone (1982, also as writer and co-lead vocals)
Chuck Mangione, 84, jazz flugelhornist, trumpeter, composer, on July 22
Mangione Brothers Sextet – Something Different (1960, on trumpet, also as composer)
Chuck Mangione – Can’t We Do This All Night (1975, also as composer and arranger)
Chuck Mangione – Give It All You Got (1979, also as composer and arranger)
Sid Kucera, 84, Swiss jazz trumpeter and singer, on July 22
Sally Tiven, 57, songwriter, guitarist and bassist, on July 23
Ian Moss – Mr Rain (1989, as co-writer)
Cleo Laine, 97, English jazz singer, on July 24
Cleo Laine – You’ll Answer To Me (1961)
Cleo Laine – Music (live) (1973)
Mel Tormé & Cleo Laine – After You’ve Gone (1992)
Amalia Macías, 91, Mexican singer and actress, on July 24
Tommy McLain, 85, swamp pop musician, on July 24
Tommy McLain – Sweet Dreams (1966)
Hulk Hogan, 71, wrestler, actor, occasional singer, on July 24
Tom Lehrer, 97, satirical singer-songwriter, on July 26
Tom Lehrer – The Old Dope Peddler (1953)
Tom Lehrer – We Will All Go Together When We Go
Tom Lehrer – Smut (1965)
Jock McDonald, 69, frontman of British band Bollock Brothers, drowned on July 26
Michael Fagan & The Bollock Brothers – God Save The Queen (1983)
The Bollock Brothers – Brigitte Bardot (1987, also as writer)
Ziad Rahbani, 69, Lebanese jazz composer, pianist, playwright, activist, on July 26
Ziad Rahbani – Abu Ali (1978)
Daddy Lumba, 60, Ghanaian singer-songwriter and musician, on July 26
Daddy Lumba – Mpempem Do Me (2008)
Rosita Velázquez, 74, Puerto Rican singer and comedian, on July 28
Paul Mario Day, 69, original lead singer Iron Maiden, announced July 29
Livio Macchia, 83, singer and guitarist with Italian pop band I Camaleonti, on July 29
I Camaleonti – Applausi (1968)
Jesto, 40, Italian rapper, on July 31
Erik Wunder, 42, metal multi-instrumentalist (Cobalt), on July 31
Flaco Jiménez, 86, Tex Mex singer, songwriter and accordionist, on July 31
Flaco Jiménez – Los Laureles (1979)
Texas Tornados – Soy De San Luis (1990, as member)
Recent Comments