1811 – Julien-Amable Mathieu (French violinist & composer)
1819 – Georg Druschetzky [Jiří Družecký] (Bohemian composer, oboist & timpanist)
1831 – Johann Ernst Friedrich Wollank (German composer)
1933 – Marcel Journet (French operatic lyric bass)
1937 – Henry Hadley (American composer & conductor)
1949 – Walter Widdop (English Heldentenor)
1952 – José Forns y Cuadras (Spanish musicologist & author)
1956 – Felix Borowski (English-born American composer, music critic, teacher, pianist & violinist)
1962 – Hanns Eisler (German-born composer, pupil of Schoenberg, friend & colleague of Brecht)
1965 – Konstantin Mostras (Russian violinist & composer, pupil of Auer, teacher of Galamian)
1966 – Luigi Perrachio (Italian composer & pianist)
1968 – Karl Rankl (Austrian-born British conductor (Covent Garden) & composer (pupil of Schoenberg & Webern))
1973 – Sir William Henry Harris (English organist, choirmaster & composer, New College & Christ Church, Oxford & St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle)
1977 – Paul Burkhard (Swiss composer & songwriter, "O mein Papa")
1977 – Guido Pannain (Italian musicologist, author & composer)
1978 – Tom Wilson (American record producer)
1979 – Ronald Binge (English composer & arranger of light music)
1981 – Joseph Yasser (Polish-born American music theorist, organist & composer)
1984 – Ernest Tubb (American country singer, songwriter & guitarist)
1985 – Léon Orthel (Dutch composer, pianist & teacher)
1985 – Franco Ferrara (Italian conductor & teacher of many conductors)
1985 – Johnny Desmond (American jazz & pop singer)
1990 – Tom Fogerty (American rock guitarist, songwriter & singer, older brother of John, CCR)
1994 – Max Kaminsky (American jazz trumpeter & bandleader)
1994 – Nicky Hopkins (English session keyboardist & vocalist, Rolling Stones et al.)
1995 – Joanne Gail Abbott (MTV executive)
1996 – Esther [Ester] Soré (Chilean popular singer & actress)
1998 – Ric Segreto (American pop singer, actor, teacher & journalist, active in the Philippines & Guam)
2001 – Carl Crack (Swazi-born German techno musician, Atari Teenage Riot)
2007 – Luciano Pavarotti (Italian operatic lyric tenor)
Weren't we just talking yesterday about the tragic recent passing of Salvatore Licitra, who'd been hailed as "the New Pavarotti," and who'd made his Met debut as a stand-in for Pavarotti on just 2 hours' notice? And now look who's on our list... the old Pavarotti! And the image I used of Luciano is of him making his curtain call for the same role Licitra sang that night: Cavaradossi from Puccini's Tosca... I'll bet you're grateful I used that pic instead of the usual concert-performance-in-formal-attire-with-white-hanky photos we're used to seeing of the great and now 4-years defunct tenor. I was tempted to make a mini-collage of him in photos alongside various pop stars... Michael Jackson, Bono, Julio Iglesias, Vanessa Williams... aren't you also grateful I resisted that impulse?
And weren't we just remembering Gisele MacKenzie yesterday? Well, turns out that one of the most memorable television appearances by singer Johnny Desmond, whom we remember today, was with Boris Karloff in 1957, on guess whose show on NBC... that's right, The Gisele MacKenzie Show!
And wasn't it just a week ago that we were remembering Carl Wayne from the Move, specifically with their 1968 album that included session keyboardist Nicky Hopkins on a few tracks? And so who makes it to the list today? Yep, it's the "Sixth Stone" himself... (Read more about him below)
And then in the comments to the post from a few days ago in which we remembered Feldman and Partch, weren't Wes and I (Say "hi" to Wes everybody - he's the one person who reads this blog - say "hi" to yourself, Wes) discussing equal divisions of the octave, in which I mentioned 19-tone equal temperament? And now along comes none other than Joseph Yasser, one of the main theorists to suggest this very tuning way back in the 30s, and poops on September 6th!
Well, it's all uncanny or whatever, and if you like you can imagine me as Jack Palance from Ripley's Believe It Or Not with that creepy grin on my face, talking about how very uncanny it is. Oh, and Jack Palance. I'll bet you're just dying (like just about everyone we ever talk about has) to know what day he met his maker, aren't you? You'll never guess... it was... it was... November 10th. Why, that's only about a month away! It's positively canny, I tell you!