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Al Hassan, who had a 40-year-plus career as a road manager for the likes of Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gormé, Tony Danza and Jim Stafford, died April 12 in Washington, his family announced. He was 87.

Hassan’s job took him across the U.S. and to Canada, Africa, Asia and Europe as he also supported Leif Garrett, Susan Anton and Nana Mouskouri, among many other entertainers.

The fifth of six children, Albert LeRoy Hassan was born on Dec. 2, 1936, and raised in the steel town of New Castle, Pennsylvania. After high school, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served for three years, then graduated from the University of Maryland with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in theater.

In college, Hassan worked with football coach Tom Nugent and was involved in the effort to recruit Joe Namath, a star high school quarterback and fellow Pennsylvanian from Beaver Falls. Namath did sign with...

Tom Smothers, who with his younger brother Dick changed the face of comedy with their musical humor and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, died Tuesday in Santa Rosa, California, following a cancer battle. The news was announced by the National Comedy Center, on behalf of Smothers’ family. He was 86.

Tom and Dick Smothers started out as folk musicians in the early ’60s, and soon discovered that, while they were not good enough to be professional musicians, the act worked if they mixed in comedy.

Dick Smothers said in a statement, “Tom was not only the loving older brother that everyone would want in their life, he was a one-of-a-kind creative partner. I am forever grateful to have spent a lifetime together with him, on and off stage, for over 60 years. Our relationship was like a good marriage – the longer we were together, the more we loved and respected one another.

Gallagher, the prop comic famous for his “Sledge-o-Matic” routine in which he smashed produce (most notably watermelon) with a giant sledgehammer, died on Friday. He was 76.

Gallagher (born Leo Gallagher) died of organ failure, his former manager told Variety, after being in hospice care for several years after suffering multiple heart attacks — the first of which came during a performance in March 2011, in Rochester, Minn.

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Fifty-one years ago this month, Capitol Records released the debut single by Mississippi-born singer-songwriter Bobbie Gentry. Now, for the first time, all seven of Gentry’s studio albums will be re-mastered from the original tapes and available in a massive eight-disc collection. The Girl From Chickasaw County, out September 21st on Capitol/UMe, also features more than 75 previously unreleased recordings including Gentry’s “lost” jazz album, along with outtakes, demos and other rarities.

Amid the Summer of Love’s psychedelic hits (“San Francisco,” “White Rabbit.” “Light My Fire” and the like,...