It’s a weird month when there are three separate murders of music people, one of them involving a former member of one of Germany’s biggest pop groups. The most horrible one involved a Mexican musician whose pregnant wife, toddler daughter and housekeeper were slain in the same crime. More on those below. Another murder victim in September was 22-year-old Chicago rapper BloodHound Q50, real name Mikquale T. Cooper, who was shot five times while seated in a car at a petrol station.
Also spare a thought for those associated with Canadian rock band Max Webster, whose big days were in the 190s and early 1980-s. In September drummer Gary McCracken died, seven months after keyboardist Terry Watkinson. The latter’s predecessor, Jim Bruton, also died this year, as did lyricist Pye Dubois, who died two days before McCracken.
The Vandella
Behind every Martha, there’s a great soprano. So it was in The Vandellas, in which Rosalind Ashford provided the high harmonies that made the trio’s sound so exhilarating.
Born in Detroit in 1943, Rosalind was still a teenager when she joined Annette Beard and Gloria Williams in a vocal group that became the Del-Phis. Martha Reeves subsequently joined them, and the quartet began working Detroit clubs, parties and local functions.
The Del-Phis recorded a few singles in 1960-61 with Gloria Williams on lead, but without commercial success. Nor did a name-change to The Vels help.
But their fortunes changed when Reeves was employed as Motown producer William “Mickey” Stevenson secretary. This led to studio work. In 1962, Ashford, Reeves and Beard — Williams had by then quit the group — provided backing vocals on Marvin Gaye’s early hits, including Stubborn Kind Of Fellow, Hitch Hike and Pride And Joy. Their work impressed Motown sufficiently for Berry Gordy to sign the trio, now named Martha & The Vandellas.
The group had an extraordinary run of singles, beginning with Come And Get These Memories in 1963, followed by classics like (Love Is Like A) Heat Wave, Quicksand, Dancing In The Street, Nowhere To Run, I’m Ready For Love, and Jimmy Mack.
Ashford remained with the Vandellas through their most successful period, through changes in personnel that saw Betty Kelley and later Lois Reeves join the group. She left in 1968, married and began working for a telephone company.
She later reunited with Reeves and Beard for performances, and in 1989 the three original Vandellas recorded Step Into My Shoes for Britain’s Motorcity label. They continued to make occasional appearances together.
In 1995, Ashford was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame alongside Reeves and the other Vandellas. The group was only the second all-female group to receive the honour.
Ashford is the first of the classic Martha & The Vandellas line-ups to pass away. Reeves, Beard and her successor Betty Kelly, and Kelly’s successor, Lois Reeves, are still alive. Gloria Williams died in 2000, and Sandra Tilley, who replaced Ashford in 1968, died in 1983.
The Jazz Singer
It is fair to say that Cassandra Wilson, who has died at 70, helped expand the boundaries of contemporary jazz, with her smoky contralto and adventurous choice of material.
Born in Mississippi in 1955, Wilson grew up in a musical household. After earning a university degree in mass communications, she moved to New York in the early 1980s. There she met the saxophonist Steve Coleman and became a founding member and principal vocalist of the experimental M-Base collective, whose music mixed jazz improvisation with complex rhythms and contemporary influences. Her first album as a leader, Point Of View, was released in 1986.
The major turning point came with her move to Blue Note Records. Blue Light ’Til Dawn, released in 1993, drew on blues, folk, country and rock, but always rooted in jazz. Follow-up New Moon Daughter won the Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Performance. A second Grammy came for Loverly in 2009. She also appeared prominently on Wynton Marsalis’s Blood On The Fields, the first jazz work to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Wilson covered songs by acts as diverse Joni Mitchell, The Stylistics, Van Morrison, Hank Williams, Robert Johnson and The Monkees, all in her own way.
Wilson released 20 albums under her name, aside from countless collaborations. Her last album, Coming Forth By Day, was released in 2015.
The Calypso King
Widely known as the King of Calypso, Mighty Sparrow made party music, but also established calypso as a vehicle for social commentary and popular storytelling.
Born in Grenada in 1935, he moved to Trinidad as a child and became fascinated by calypso as a teenager. He began performing at carnivals in the early 1950s and made his first recordings in 1955. By then he had dropped his pretty cool birth name — Slinger Francisco — to go by the stage name Mighty Sparrow, a nod to his hyperactive stage performance. If he didn’t want that birth name, could I have it, please?
Sparrow broke through in 1956 with Jean and Dinah (also known as Yankees Gone), which gave a social commentary on the situation of local prostitutes stripped of their business by the withdrawal of US troops from Trinidad.
His song Carnival Boycott was a protest against the poor prize money and working conditions for calypsonians, helping to make musicians’ treatment a public issue. Sparrow’s repertoire ranged from politics, race, relationships, migration, poverty, and religion to everyday Caribbean life, supporting Trinidad and Tobago’s independence and taking on politicians and social problems. Many of his songs are humorous, such as 1970s Sparrow Dead, which riffs on reports that he had died.
He also had a line in bawdy and X-rated sexual humour. In 1965 he caused controversy with Congo Man, which was accused of being misogynistic and anti-African — long before such things were a big issue.
For many years, starting in the 1950s, Sparrow ran a public beef with fellow calypso giant Lord Melody. They would attack one another in calypsos, then answer the attack with another song. Sparrow called it a “longtime, affectionate musical ‘feud’” between serious competitors but also friends.
Sparrow toured extensively internationally, and incorporated elements of jazz, soul, gospel and reggae into his music. When soca supplanted calypso as the popular genre, he adapted to that style.
He recorded more than 70 albums and wrote more than 500 songs. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of the West Indies, an OBE and Trinidad and Tobago’s Order of the Republic.
The Singer-Composer
He seemed an unlikely candidate for pop stardom, and after his one big hit — 1996’s Barely Breathing — Duncan Sheik avoided repeating the formula that brought him success, despite a Grammy nomination for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.
His subsequent albums, such as Humming, Phantom Moon, Daylight and White Limousine, featured orchestration, literary influences and more adventurous arrangements. He also began writing for film and theatre.
The latter brought his great second act with the rock musical Spring Awakening, which Sheik created with lyricist and playwright Steven Sater, based on Frank Wedekind’s controversial 1891 play about adolescents confronting sexuality, repression and the adult world in 19th-century Germany. It won eight Tony Awards. Sheik won Tonys for Best Original Score and Best Orchestrations, while the cast album earned a Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album.
The success established Sheik as a significant theatre composer. He and Sater continued their collaboration on Alice By Heart, while Sheik also wrote the music for American Psycho, The Secret Life Of Bees and other stage productions.
He continued recording; his last album, Claptrap, came out in 2022.
Sheik died on September 17 aged 56 from heart failure.
The Hard Rocker
For many people, Australian hard rock singer Angry Anderson is best-known for being the voice behind the wedding song played on the popular soap Neighbours, when Kylie Minogue’s character marries Jason Donovan. On the strength of that scene, Anderson’s 1986 album track Suddenly became a huge hit in Australia and later in the UK. But many others know Anderson as the lead singer of hard rock band Rose Tattoo, a band whose reputation was never really reflected in record sales.
Born Gary Anderson in Melbourne in 1947, and nicknamed Angry Ant as a kid for his bad temper, Anderson began his recording career with Buster Brown, a blues-rock band whose drummer was Phil Rudd, later of AC/DC. Buster Brown released one album in 1974, before Anderson moved on to Rose Tattoo, formed in Sydney in 1976.
Rose Tattoo’s music was tough, blues-based Australian pub rock, driven by slide guitar and Anderson’s rough, powerful vocals. The band’s first four albums were produced by AC/DC associates Harry Vanda and George Young.
Rose Tattoo developed a strong international following overseas, but it was Anderson’s unlikely solo career that briefly made him a household name. The ballad Suddenly was first released on Anderson’s solo debut in 1986, but its use during the 1987 Neighbours wedding of Scott and Charlene turned it into an international hit.
Anderson kept touring and recording with Rose Tattoo, but also appeared in films and television, including as Ironbar Bassey in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. In 1992, Anderson played King Herod in an Australian arena-style revival of Jesus Christ Superstar.
The Bassist
In the story of rocksteady and ska becoming reggae, Jackie Jackson provided the bass on many key moments.
Jackson’s first major recording, barely out of his teens, was Alton Ellis’s 1967 classic Girl I’ve Got A Date. As a member of Reid’s Supersonics, he supplied the bass on a string of rocksteady standards, including The Techniques’ Queen Majesty and I Wish It Would Rain; The Melodians’ You’ve Caught Me Baby and Little Nut Tree; The Paragons’ On The Beach and Wear You To The Ball; The Jamaicans’ Ba Ba Boom; and Dobby Dobson’s I’m A Loving Pauper.
He also played on Desmond Dekker & The Aces’ international mega hit Israelites, The Melodians’ By The Rivers of Babylon; The Wailers’ Small Axe and Thank You Lord; and Ken Boothe’s Lady With The Starlight. Jackson appeared on Jimmy Cliff’s The Harder They Come soundtrack, including The Harder They Come and You Can Get It If You Really Want (Cliff and Dekker used the same backing track for their respective hit versions).
Jackson also played bass on Paul Simon’s 1972 hit Mother And Child Reunion, which was recorded in Jamaica with a largely local backing band.
As a long-time member of Toots & The Maytals, Jackson played on classics like on Pressure Drop, Sweet And Dandy, and Funky Kingston.
The Murder Victim
The death of Jonathan “Honas” Meléndez, keyboardist, composer and producer with Mexican indie band Camilo Séptimo, was shockingly horrific. The 38-year-old was found dead in his at his home in Atizapán de Zaragoza alongside his wife, Ana Paola, who was four months pregnant, their three-year-old daughter, and Aleyda Romero, a 21-year-old domestic worker. The family dog was also killed. Their six-year-old son survived, having hidden during the attack.
Meléndez was a founding member of the band, which emerged from Mexico City’s indie scene with a sound combining synth-pop, alt. rock and electronic music.
The investigation has produced two arrests, but there has been no publicly established final motive or conclusion about whether additional people were involved. The suspects are a business associate of Meléndez, and his driver. Investigators are examining a possible financial motive.
The Son of Mannheim
Another musician was murdered in September: Jamaican rapper Marlon B., who had been a member of the German pop collective Söhne Mannheims, was killed in a shooting attack on the bar he owned in Robin’s Bay, northern Jamaica. Marlon B. James was 60. Two others were killed.
Marlon B. was the rapper of Söhne Mannheims, and also served as a songwriter, from 1999-2017, when he relocated to his home country of Jamaica.
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.
Cassandra Wilson, 70, jazz singer, on Sept. 1
Cassandra Wilson – Death Letter (1995)
Luther Vandross feat. Cassandra Wilson & Bob James – I’m Only Human (1998)
Cassandra Wilson – Gone With The Wind (2009)
Edith Barr, 90, Peruvian Creole singer, on Sept. 1
Laurence Cook, 87, free jazz drummer, on Sept. 1
Jonathan Meléndez, 38, keyboardist of Mexican indie band Camilo Séptimo, murdered Sept. 1
Camilo Séptimo – Eres (2017)
He Yong, 57, Chinese rock pioneer, in Sept. 1
John Pickles, 84, co-initiator of remix outfit Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers, on Sept. 3
Craig Douglas, 85, English pop singer, on Sept. 4
Craig Douglas – Pretty Blue Eyes (1960)
Jon Small, 79, drummer of garage rock band The Hassles, music video director, on Sept. 4
The Hassles – I Can Tell (1968, written by Billy Joel)
Run DMC & Aerosmith – Walk This Way (1986, as video producer)
Andy Williams, 48, metalcore guitarist and professional wrestler, on Sept. 5
Richard Tesařík, 80, singer of Czech rock group Yo Yo Band, on Sept. 6
Mary Rude, 92, singer with vocal group The Dream Weavers, on Sept. 8
The Dream Weavers – A Little Love Can Go A Long Long Way (1956)
Pat Senatore, 91, jazz bassist, on Sept. 8
Christof Straub, 57, guitarist of Austrian duo Papermoon, on Sept. 9
Papermoon – Tell Me A Poem (1992)
Marlon B., 60, Jamaican rapper with German pop band Söhne Mannheims, shot on Sept. 9
Die Söhne Mannheims – Das hat die Welt noch nicht gesehen (2008, on rap and as co-writer)
Paddy Keenan, 76, uilleann piper of Irish trad. group Bothy Band, on Sept. 9
Giorgos Mazonakis, 54, Greek pop singer, on Sept. 9
Giorgos Mazonakis – Summer In Greece (2005)
Peter de Jong, 74, singer, guitarist, songwriter of Australian rock band Heroes, announced Sept. 10
Heroes – Baby’s Had A Taste (1980, also as writer)
Ray D. Rowe, 90, soul singer, early Gap Band member, announced Sept. 11
Lungskull, 20, French rapper, on Sept. 11
Tone Capone, 59, hip-hop producer, on Sept. 12
Luniz – I Got Five On It (1995, as producer)
Cheetah Chrome, 71, guitarist of punk bands Dead Boys, Rocket From The Tombs, on Sept. 13
Dead Boys – Sonic Reducer (1977, also as co-writer)
BloodHound Q50, 22, American rapper, shot on Sept. 13
Pete Byrne, 74, singer and songwriter of UK new wave band Naked Eyes, on Sept. 14
Naked Eyes – Promises, Promises (1983, also as co-writer)
Catherine Ringer, 68, French singer, songwriter, film composer, on Sept. 14
Les Rita Mitsouko – Marcia Baïla (1968, as lead singer and co-writer)
Marcus Andersson, 52, drummer of Swedish punk band Disfear, announced Sept. 15
Rosalind Ashford, 83, soprano of Martha & The Vandellas, on Sept. 15
The Del-Phis – I’ll Let You Know (1960, as member)
Marvin Gaye – Hitch Hike (1962, on backing vocals)
Martha & The Vandellas – Come And Get These Memories (1963)
Martha & The Vandellas – Jimmy Mack (1967)
Ben Saunders, 43, English-born Dutch singer, drowned on Sept. 15
Ronnie Dove, 91, pop and country singer, on Sept. 15
Ronnie Dove – A Little Bit Of Heaven (1965)
Gerrit Graham, 76, actor and songwriter, on Sept. 15
Bob Weir & Ratdog – Bury Me Standing (2000, as co-writer)
Pye Dubois, 77, Canadian lyricist (Rush, Max Webster, Kim Mitchell), on Sept. 15
Rush – Tom Sawyer (1981, as co-writer)
Gary McCracken, 75, drummer of Canadian rock band Max Webster, on Sept. 17
Max Webster – A Million Vacations (1979, also as co-writer, with Pye Dubois)
Duncan Sheik, 56, singer-songwriter and musical composer, on Sept. 17
Duncan Sheik – Barely Breathing (1996, also as writer)
Duncan Sheik – White Limousine (2006, also as writer)
‘Spring Awakening’ Original Broadway Cast – The Song Of Purple Summer (2006, as composer)
Kevin Spencer, 71, soul and disco keyboardist, songwriter and producer, on Sept. 17
Shalamar – Take That To The Bank (1978, as co-writer)
Dynasty – Here I Am (1981, as member)
Sway, 44, British rapper, songwriter and producer, on Sept. 17
Sway feat. Kelsey – Level Up (2012, also as co-writer)
Peter Petrel, 86, German schlager singer, on Sept. 18
Windows – How Do You Do (1972, as half of the duo)
Rudy Cheeks, 76, singer-saxophonist of rock band The Young Adults, on Sept. 19
Carvin Jones, 60, blues musician, on Sept. 20
Chad Gilbert, 45, rock guitarist, songwriter and record producer, on Sept. 20
New Found Glory – All Downhill From Here (2004, as member and co-writer)
Chris Stifel, bluegrass singer, musician and songwriter, on Sept. 20
Rick Sollo, 59, half of Brazilian Sertanejo duo Rick & Renner, in helicopter crash on Sept. 21
Angry Anderson, 79, singer-songwriter of Australian metal band Rose Tattoo, on Sept. 21
Rose Tattoo – Rock ‘n’ Roll Outlaw (1978, also as co-writer)
Angry Anderson – Suddenly (1987, also as co-writer)
Vector Lovers, 57, British electronic music producer, announced Sept. 21
Jorge Palma, 76, Portuguese rock singer and songwriter, on Sept. 21
Jorge Palma – The Nine Billion Names Of God (1972, also as writer)
Roberto Müller, 89, Brazilian singer, on Sept. 22
Yoshio Suzuki, 80, Japanese jazz bassist and keyboardist, on Sept. 23
Yoshio ‘Chin’ Suzuki – Third Relation (1992, on keyboards)
Jackie Jackson, 79, Jamaican reggae bass player (Toots & The Maytals), on Sept. 23
Desmond Dekker & The Aces – Israelites (1968, on bass)
Paul Simon – Mother And Child Reunion (1972, on bass)
Toots & The Maytals – Reggae Got Soul (1976, as member on bass)
Moses Matovu, 77, leader of Ugandan rumba group Afrigo Band, in assault on Sept. 24
Afrigo Band – Speed (1989)
Roberto Müller, 89, Brazilian singer, on Sept. 24
Neil Henderson, 73, pop guitarist (BCR, Middle Of The Road), ann. Sept. 25
Bay City Rollers – Keep On Dancing (1971, as member)
Chuck Varga, 68, singer with metal band Gwar, ann. Sept. 25
Gwar – Rag Na Rok (1995, on lead vocals)
Bruno Kramm, 58, half of German electronic duo Das Ich, on Sept. 25
Liu Huan, 63, pioneering Chinese pop singer and songwriter, on Sept. 25
Liu Huan & Sarah Brightman – You And Me (2008, Beijing Olympics Theme Song)
Ronnie Golden, singer of UK new wave band Fabulous Poodles, comedian, Sept. 26
The Fabulous Poodles – Mirror Star (1978, co-writer and lead singer as Tony de Meur)
Frank Greathouse, 78, bluegrass mandolinist of New Deal String Band, on Sept. 26
Eduardo Rodríguez Rodway, 81, guitarist of Spanish prog band Triana, on Sept. 26
Triana – Luminosa Mañana (1975)
Kristina Safrany, 54, singer with German eurodance group First Base, on Sept. 26
Manuel Seal, 66, R&B songwriter and producer, on Sept. 27
Xscape – Just Kickin’ It (1993, as co-writer and co-producer)
Usher feat. Alicia Keys – My Boo (2004, as co-writer and co-producer)
Mighty Sparrow, 91, Trinidadian calypso singer, musician, songwriter, on Sept. 27
Mighty Sparrow – Jean And Dinah (1956)
Mighty Sparrow – Sparrow Dead (1969)
Mighty Sparrow – Dead Or Alive (1980)
Bob Davenport, 94, English folk singer, announced Sept. 28
Lieutenant Stitchie, 60, Jamaican reggae musician and DJ, on Sept. 28
Lt. Stitchie – Natty Dread (1987)
Conrad ‘Cronos’ Lant, 63, singer and bassist of UK black metal band Venom, Sept. 29
Margie Baker, 92, jazz singer, saxophonist and educator, announced Sept. 30
Gabino Palomares, 76, Mexican singer-songwriter, political activist, on Oct. 30
Gabino Palomares – La Maldición De Malinche (1975)
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