The Rest In Peace & Remembrance Thread #2

that is a shock to read that. i don't like either what he did to the yankees but the man is in basball history.

 

'60s anti-war rocker Tuli Kupferberg dies in NYC
Jul 13, 4:07 PM (ET)
By FRANK ELTMAN

Tuli Kupferberg, a founding member of the underground rock group and
staple of 1960s anti-war protests, the Fugs, has died.

Kupferberg, who had suffered strokes in the past year, died Monday in a
Manhattan hospital, said his friend and bandmate Ed Sanders. He was 86.

"I think he will be remembered as a unique American songwriter," Sanders
told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his home in
Woodstock, N.Y. "Tuli had an uncanny ability to shape nuanced lyrics."

Sanders, who is writing a new memoir about the Fugs, said he visited his
friend in the hospital on Thursday. Although Kupferberg was clearly
ailing, he leaned into his ear and sang him the lyrics to a Fugs classic,
"Morning, Morning," Sanders said.

"And then I said, 'goodbye,'" he said.

Kupferberg's contributions were recognized in January when Lou Reed, Sonic
Youth and others appeared at a benefit concert in Brooklyn to help pay for
some of his medical expenses. He was too ill by then to attend the show,
but recorded a 10-second video message, according to the New York Times,
thanking the audience.

"Now go out there and have some fun," he said. "It may be later than you
think."

The Fugs were formed by Sanders and Kupferberg, who were neighbors on
Manhattan's Lower East Side in early 1965, according to the band's
website. Their name, a substitute for a common expletive, was inspired by
Norman Mailer, who used it in his classic, "Naked and the Dead."

The band ran in the same circles as Andy Warhol, Frank Zappa and the
Mothers of Invention, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and other icons of the
1960s. It often performed at peace protests.

Kupferberg once referred to the band as "the U.S.O. of the left,"
according to the Times.

The group disbanded in 1969, but reformed several times since. It
performed for a time on the Reprise label, which was owned by Frank
Sinatra, who had final approval on album releases.

Sanders notes many of the songs Kupferberg wrote tended to be on the
ribald side. "He wrote satirical, erotic songs," Sanders said, rattling
off titles such as "Morning, Morning,""The Garden is Open" and "Kill for
Peace."

Kupferberg, who also was a poet, produced cartoons for the Village Voice
and had a longtime television program on the Manhattan public access cable
channel, Sanders said. He posted some recent performances, which he called
"preverbs," on YouTube, including, "Backward Jewish Soldiers (Hug your
Gentile brothers)," which was his adaptation of the classic, "Onward
Christian Soldiers."

He is survived by his wife, Sylvia Topp; three children and three
grandchildren.

 

Country songwriter Hank Cochran dead at 74
Thursday, July 15, 2010

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- Hank Cochran, a songwriter who composed a string
of country hits including "Make the World Go Away" for Eddy Arnold, has
died. He was 74.

Publicist Martha E. Moore said Cochran died Thursday morning at his home
in Hendersonville north of Nashville.

He had been in declining health in recent years and suffered an aortic
aneurysm in March.

He co-wrote the following No. 1 hits: Patsy Cline's "I Fall to Pieces";
George Strait's "Ocean Front Property"; and "Set 'em Up Joe" by Vern
Gosdin.

He also wrote the No. 1 hits: "Don't You Ever Get Tired of Hurting Me" by
Ronnie Milsap; "He's Got You" by Cline and Loretta Lynn; "I Want to Go
With You" by Arnold; and "That's All That Matters to Me" by Mickey Gilley.

 

Actress Vonetta McGee dead at 65
July 16, 2010 at 5:37 PM

NEW YORK, July 16 (UPI) -- U.S. actress Vonetta McGee has died of cardiac arrest in Berkeley, Calif., where she was a resident, a family spokeswoman said. She was 65.

McGee, who died July 9, is best known for her work in the blaxploitation pictures "Blacula," "Hammer" and "Shaft in Africa." Her other film credits include "Faustina," "Il Grande Silenzio," "The Lost Man," "The Kremlin Letter," "Detroit 9000," "Thomasine & Bushrod" "The Eiger Sanction," The New York Times said Friday.

Her small-screen credits include "Hell Town," "Bustin' Loose," "L.A. Law" and "Cagney & Lacey."

She is survived by actor Carl Lumbly, her husband since 1986, as well as their son, Brandon Lumbly; her mother, Alma McGee; three brothers -- Donald, Richard and Ronald; and a sister, also named Alma McGee, the Times noted.

 

Yahoo! Big League Stew: James Gammon, played Lou Brown in 'Major League,' dies at 70

The funniest, crankiest and perhaps most-beloved manager in the history of the Cleveland Indians has died.

James Gammon, who played skipper Lou Brown in the film "Major League" and its first sequel, died in Costa Mesa, Calif. on Friday, the Orlando Sentinel reports. Also a resident of Ocala, Fla., Gammon was 70.

Via the Sentinel: "He had cancer two and a half years ago," his wife, Nancy, said Saturday. "It came back aggressively about a month ago in his adrenal glands and liver, and he was very weak. They couldn't do surgery or chemotherapy. He decided he wanted to come home, and we did hospice."

So sad. Hopefully, with Gammon's suffering over, his spirit is in a better place.

The Sentinel hits the nail on the head by describing Gammon as a "superb character actor." He had a face and a voice that were perfect for westerns, cranky grandfather types and, of course, as manager of the most hopeless team in baseball.

Amid considerable hijinks, those fictional Indians (in case you missed it) won the old AL East despite their owner attempting to tank on purpose so she could move the team to Miami. (The movie, which premiered in 1989, predates the real Marlins.)

For fans, the movie's characters have stayed with us ever since. If you're like me, scenes pop into your head and quotes come out of your mouth. It's long become part of baseball's popular culture.

And we don't reference only Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn or Pedro Cerrano's voodoo god, Jo-Buu. Lou Brown was just as quotable:
I think you can go get him now."
"Give 'em the heater, Ricky."
"You may run like Mays, but you hit like s***."
"Don't give me this ole' bull[oney]."
"Lemme think it over, will ya, Charlie? I got a guy on the other line about some whitewalls. I'll talk to ya' later."

Even some of his other lines — such as "Tire World" and "Oh, I dunno" — still crack me up. It's a wonderfully nuanced performance. It wouldn't be the same movie without him.

The same goes for real life, too.[/quote]

 

Aw, that's a shame. I mostly remember James Gammon as Nash Bridges dad with Don Johnson.

 

So sad

 

Longtime journalist Daniel Schorr dead at age 93
Jul 23, 1:43 PM (ET)
By BRETT ZONGKER

WASHINGTON (AP) - Veteran reporter and commentator Daniel Schorr, whose hard-hitting reporting for CBS got him on President Richard Nixon's notorious "enemies list" in the 1970s, has died. He was 93.

Schorr died Friday at a Washington hospital after a brief illness, said Anna Christopher, a spokeswoman for National Public Radio, where Schorr continued to work as a senior news analyst and commentator.

Schorr's career of more than six decades spanned the spectrum of journalism - beginning in print, then moving to television where he spent 23 years with CBS News and ending with NPR. He also wrote several books, including his memoir, "Staying Tuned: A Life in Journalism."

Schorr is survived by his wife, Lisbeth, his son, Jonathan Schorr, daughter, Lisa Kaplan, and one grandchild. Memorial plans have not been set.

Full story at Iwon/AP News.

 

Mitch Miller dead at 99

NEW YORK (AP) - Mitch Miller, the goateed orchestra leader who asked Americans to "Sing Along With Mitch" on television and records, has died at age 99.

His daughter, Margaret Miller Reuther, said Monday that Miller died Saturday in Lenox Hill Hospital after a short illness.

Miller was a key record executive at Columbia Records in the pre-rock 'n' roll era, making hits with singers Rosemary Clooney, Patti Page, Johnny Mathis and Tony Bennett.

"Sing Along With Mitch" started as a series of records, then became a popular NBC show starting in early 1961. Miller's stiff-armed conducting style and signature goatee became famous.

As a producer and arranger, Miller had misses along with his hits, famously striking out on projects with Frank Sinatra and a young Aretha Franklin.

The TV show ranked in the top 20 for the 1961-62 season, and soon children everywhere were parodying Miller's stiff-armed conducting. An all-male chorus sang old standards, joined by a few female singers, most prominently Leslie Uggams. Viewers were invited to join in with lyrics superimposed on the screen and followed with a bouncing ball.

"He is an odd-looking man," New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson wrote in 1962. "His sharp beard, twinkling eyes, wrinkled forehead and mechanical beat make him look like a little puppet as he peers hopefully into the camera. By now most of us are more familiar with his tonsils than with those of our families."

Atkinson went on to say that as a musician, Miller was "first rate," praising "the clean tone of the singing, the clarity of the lyrics, the aptness of the tempos, the variety and the occasional delicacy of the instrumental accompaniment."

An accomplished oboist, Miller played in a number of orchestras early in his career, including one put together in 1934 by George Gershwin. "Gershwin was an unassuming guy," Miller told The New York Times in 1989. "I never heard him raise his voice."

Miller began in the recording business with Mercury Records in the late '40s, first on the classical side, later with popular music. He then went over to Columbia Records as head of its popular records division.

Among the stars whose hits he worked on were Clooney, Page, Bennett, Frankie Laine and Jo Stafford. His decision to have Mathis switch from jazz to lushly romantic ballads launched the singer as a superstar.

He had a less rewarding collaboration with Sinatra, whose recording of the novelty song "Mama Will Bark," featuring a barking dog, was considered the nadir of the singer's career. Still, Miller became known for his distinctive arrangements, such as the use of a harpsichord on Clooney's megahit version of "Come On-a My House." He used dubbing of vocal tracks back when that was considered exotic.

"To me, the art of singing a pop song has always been to sing it very quietly," Miller said in the book "Off the Record: An Oral History of Popular Music."

"The microphone and the amplifier made the popular song what it is - an intimate one-on-one experience through electronics. It's not like opera or classical singing. The whole idea is to take a very small thing and make it big."

Miller and a chorus had a No. 1 hit in 1955 with "The Yellow Rose of Texas," and that led to his sing-along records a few years later.

The years of Miller's biggest successes were also the early years of rock 'n' roll, and many fans saw his old-fashioned arrangements of standards and folk favorites as an antidote to the noisy stuff the teens adored. As an executive at Columbia, Miller would be widely ridiculed for trying to turn a young Aretha Franklin into a showbiz diva in the tradition of Sophie Tucker.

But Miller was not entirely unsympathetic to rock 'n' roll. In a 1955 essay in The New York Times magazine, he said the popularity of rhythm and blues, as he called it, with white teens was part of young people's "natural desire not to conform, a need to be rebellious."

He added: "There is a steady - and healthy - breaking down of color barriers in the United States; perhaps the rhythm-and-blues rage - I am only theorizing - is another expression of it."

"Miller has often been maligned as a maestro of 1950s schlock ... Yet Miller injected elements of rhythm and blues and country music, however diluted, into mainstream pop," Ken Emerson wrote in his book "Always Magic in the Air."

In the Martin Scorsese documentary on Bob Dylan, "No Direction Home," Miller acknowledged that he was dubious when famed producer John Hammond brought the nearly unknown Dylan to the staid Columbia label in the early '60s. "He was singing in, you know, this rough-edged voice," Miller said. "I will admit I didn't see the greatness of it." But he said he respected Hammond's track record in finding talent.

In recent years, Miller returned to his classical roots, appearing frequently as a guest conductor with symphony orchestras.

In 2000, he won a special Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.

Reuther said her father died of "just old age."

"He was absolutely himself up until the minute he got sick," she said. "He was truly blessed with a long and wonderful life."

Miller was born in 1911, in Rochester, N.Y., son of a Russian Jewish immigrant wrought-iron worker and a seamstress. He graduated from the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester.

Reuther said there will be a memorial service for her father in the fall.

Read more: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/th...px?n=mitch-miller&pid=144444270#ixzz0vUx8vrSD

 

OMG, thank's Dynamo1 I didn't even realize he was still living.. wow 99, that's a long time, he was always wonderful as my memory permits, I was a kid, but my mom loved him, may he RIP~

 

Bobby Hebb of `Sunny' fame dead at age 72
Aug 3 04:28 PM US/Eastern
By JOE EDWARDS

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Bobby Hebb, whose 1966 pop music classic "Sunny" described a sincere smile from a woman that lifted the singer's burdens, died Tuesday. He was 72.

Family members and a funeral home spokeswoman said Hebb died at Centennial Medical Center. Friends said he had lung cancer.

"Sunny" also was recorded by many other singers, including Marvin Gaye, Wilson Pickett and Jose Feliciano.

The song's key lines:

"Sunny, yesterday my life was filled with rain.
"Sunny, you smiled at me and really eased the pain.
"The dark days are gone and the bright days are here.
"My sunny one shines so sincere.
"Sunny one so true, I love you."

Hebb had said in several interviews that he wrote "Sunny" in response to the slaying of his brother outside a Nashville nightclub and to the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy a few days before.

On his 69th birthday in 2007, he recalled that he was living and
performing in New York City at the time he wrote the song.

"I was intoxicated," Hebb told The Associated Press. "I came home and started playing the guitar. I looked up and saw what looked like a purple sky. I started writing because I'd never seen that before."

He included the song in his act at a bar called Brandy's and the audience liked it.

After a Japanese artist had a hit with the song in Asia and vibraphone player Dave Pike recorded it in the United States, Hebb recorded the vocal at Bell Sound in New York.

At the height of "Sunny" popularity, Hebb toured with the Beatles.

In a 2004 interview with The Tennessean newspaper, Hebb recalled that all four Beatles were nice.

"John (Lennon) and George (Harrison) were very quiet," he said. "But Ringo (Starr) and Paul (McCartney) were more active and easier to get to know. It was just something to be with those cats."

In 1971, Lou Rawls won a Grammy award for "A Natural Man," written by Hebb and Sandy Baron. In 2004, Broadcast Music Incorporated honored Hebb for 6 million airings of "Sunny."

As recently as 2007, Hebb was still writing songs and had his own
publishing company and record label, Hebb Cats.

Hebb was born to blind parents and raised in Nashville. He joined the Navy in 1955 where he played the trumpet in a jazz band.

In the 1950s Hebb also played and danced with Roy Acuff's country band, the Smoky Mountain Boys, and became one of the first black musicians to perform on the Grand Ole Opry show in Nashville.

Funeral services were pending. Survivors include a daughter and four sisters.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-


'Ty-D-Bol Man' Dan Resin dies, 'Caddyshack' and TV commercial actor dead at 79
August 03, 2010 12:15 PM EDT


The 'Ty-D-Bol Man' Dan Resin is dead at age 79. Resin died on Saturday due to complications from Parkinson's disease according to daughter Elizabeth Olynick. Resin had been residing in New Jersey.

Originally born in South Bend, Indiana, Dan Resin attended Indiana University before going on to star in several Broadway shows. Among his stage work were roles in both 'Once Upon a Mattress' and 'My Fair Lady'. Resin also was one of the characters in the classic golf comedy 'Caddyshack'. Resin played Dr. Beeper in the film, a country club member who served as opposition to Rodney Dangerfield's character. Other movie work Resin has on his resume includes 'Wise Guys' and 'The Sunshine Boys'.

Dan Resin also appeared in a cream cheese commercial as an elegant diner. He had several television roles such as the CBS show 'On Our Own', a soap opera 'Edge of Night' and a 1978 syndicated comedy called 'Madhouse Brigade'.

 

Source The Cleveland Plain Dealer

Patricia Neal, Oscar-winning actress, dies at age 84

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Patricia Neal, the willowy, husky-voiced actress who won an Academy Award for 1963's "Hud" and then survived several strokes to continue acting, died on Sunday. She was 84. Neal had lung cancer and died surrounded by her family at her home in Edgartown, Mass., on Martha's Vineyard.

"She faced her final illness as she had all of the many trials she endured: with indomitable grace, good humor and a great deal of her self-described stubbornness," her family said in a statement.

Neal was already an award-winning Broadway actress when she won her Oscar for her role as a housekeeper to the Texas father (Melvyn Douglas) battling his selfish, amoral son (Paul Newman).

Less than two years later, she suffered a series of strokes in 1965 at age 39. Her struggle to once again walk and talk is regarded as epic in the annals of stroke rehabilitation. She returned to the screen to earn another Oscar nomination and three Emmy nominations.

The Patricia Neal Rehabilitation Center that helps people recover from strokes and spinal cord and brain injuries is named for her in Knoxville, where she grew up.

"She never forgot us after she went to Hollywood," said 85-year-old Bud Albers, who graduated with Neal from Knoxville High School in 1943, and still lives in the city.

Whenever she was in town, a bunch of her friends would always get together and have dinner, Albers said. She had wanted to be there next week for a golf tournament that benefits the center, he said.

"She was so courageous," he said of her battling back from her illnesses and losing her 7-year-old daughter to measles in 1962. "She always fought back. She was very much an inspiration."

In her 1988 autobiography, "As I Am," she wrote, "Frequently my life has been likened to a Greek tragedy, and the actress in me cannot deny that comparison."

Neal projected force that almost crackled on the screen. Her forte was drama, but she had a light touch that enabled her to do comedy, too.
She had the female leads in the 1949 film version of Ayn Rand's novel "The Fountainhead," the classic 1951 science fiction film "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and Elia Kazan's 1957 drama "A Face in the Crowd."

She made a grand return to the screen after her strokes in 1968, winning an Oscar nomination for her performance in "The Subject Was Roses."

In 1971, she played Olivia Walton in "The Homecoming: A Christmas Story," a made-for-TV film that served as the pilot for the CBS series "The Waltons." It brought her the first of her three Emmy nominations.

"You can't give up," she said in a 1999 Associated Press interview. "You sure want to, sometimes."

In 1953, she married Roald Dahl, the British writer famed for "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," ''James and the Giant Peach" and other tales for children. They had five children. They divorced in 1983 after she learned he was having an affair with her best friend and he died in 1990.

Even before her illnesses, her life often was touched by misfortune. Besides her daughter's death, an infant son nearly died in 1960 when his carriage was struck by a taxi.

Neal also suffered a nervous breakdown, and had an ill-fated affair with Gary Cooper, who starred with her in "The Fountainhead."

"I lived this secret life for several years. I was so ashamed," she told The New York Times in 1964.

The strokes at first paralyzed her and impaired her speech. After recovering, she limped and had bad vision in one eye. A 1991 biopic about her travails starred Glenda Jackson as Neal.

Her family said her dedication to the rehab center and advocacy for stroke sufferers was a great source of hope for them and their families and a "constant inspiration to our family."

In 1999, she starred in her first feature film in 10 years in the title role in Robert Altman's "Cookie's Fortune."

She said at the time that movie offers had been scarce in recent years.
"I don't quite understand it, but nobody calls me and nobody wants me. But I love to act."Neal was born in a mining camp in Packard, Ky., the daughter of a transportation manager for the South Coal & Coke Co. After leaving Knoxville, she attended Northwestern University and then struck out for Broadway.

Her Broadway credits included "A Roomful of Roses," ''The Miracle Worker" (as Helen Keller's mother, Kate) and a revival of Lillian Hellman's drama "The Children's Hour."

She made her screen debut in 1949's "John Loves Mary," that also starred Jack Carson and Ronald Reagan.

Her three Emmy nominations were all for roles in notable drama specials: Besides "The Homecoming," they were "Tail Gunner Joe," a 1977 drama about Sen. Joe McCarthy, and a version of the tragic World War I story "All Quiet on the Western Front."

Among Neal's children is Tessa Dahl, who followed in her father's footsteps as a writer. Tessa Dahl's daughter is the model and writer Sophie Dahl.
Friends said her sorrows gave her an inner toughness that brought new power to her screen roles.

"I don't lie down. ... I'm fightin' all the way," she said in 1999.
The statement from Tessa, Theo, Ophelia and Lucy Dahl and others said that the night before her death, Neal told them, "I've had a lovely time."

 

'Muppet Show' bandleader Jack Parnell dies at 87

LONDON — British jazz drummer Jack Parnell, who served as bandleader on "The Muppet Show," has died aged 87, his family said Monday.

The family said Parnell died at his home in Southwold, eastern England, on Sunday following a yearlong battle with cancer.

Parnell was born in 1923, the son of a showbiz family _ his father was a music hall performer and his uncle ran a string of theaters _ and began drumming professionally as a teenager. During World War II he served in the Royal Air Force and performed in a band at the headquarters of Bomber Command.

Later, Parnell joined the renowned Ted Heath jazz band before leading his own ensembles.

As musical director at British broadcaster ATV from the late 1950s, he oversaw the music for long-running variety show "Sunday Night at the London Palladium," produced specials featuring Tom Jones and Barbra Streisand, composed theme tunes and served as musical director of "The Benny Hill Show."

In 1976, ATV began producing "The Muppet Show," a musical variety show with a cast of Jim Henson puppets and celebrity human guest stars.

Parnell conducted the orchestra for the whole of the series' five-year run, although the ostensible bandleader was the pop-eyed Muppet conductor, Nigel.

Parnell retired from ATV in 1982 but continued to perform with bands near his home well into his 80s.

He is survived by his wife, Veronica, two daughters and three sons _ two of them drummers.

Funeral details were not immediately available.


-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens dies in plane crash
By BECKY BOHRER, Associated Press Writer


JUNEAU, Alaska – A plane carrying former Sen. Ted Stevens and ex-NASA chief Sean O'Keefe crashed into a remote mountainside in Alaska, killing the longtime senator and at least four others, authorities said Tuesday.

O'Keefe and his teenage son survived the crash with broken bones and other injuries, former NASA spokesman Glenn Mahone said. The O'Keefes spent Monday night on the mountain with several volunteers who discovered the wreckage and tended to the injured until rescuers arrived Tuesday morning.

Stevens and O'Keefe are longtime fishing buddies who had been planning a trip near where the float plane crashed.

 

Rest In Peace.

For more via Yahoo.. Former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens dies in plane crash
There is also news on CNN and FOXNews, as well as MSNBC, etc.