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This was a particularly sad week for the musical world. We lost four greats: Chuck Brown, the godfather of Go-Go; country-rock pioneer Doug Dillard; supreme disco diva Donna Summer; and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who did more to promote art song than anyone else in the recording era.

Chuck Brown was the most innovative of them, and the funkiest. Born in 1936, he paid his dues as a guitarist in various R&B bands in the '60s. His funk band The Soul Searchers made two classic albums for Sussex, We the People (1972) and Salt of the Earth (1974). "Ashley's Roachclip" on the latter includes a drum break that became one of the sampled breaks in hip-hop; "Blow Your Whistle" from the same LP is also much-sampled.

It's debatable when Go-Go originated as a separate style; originally, it denoted merely party music or a dance club. But in live performance, in Brown's home territory in and around Washington D.

Nashville, Tenn. -- Doug Dillard, an influential banjo player who helped shape rock `n' roll and introduce the nation to bluegrass music during a popular run on "The Andy Griffith Show," died Wednesday in Nashville. He was 75.

Lynne Robin Green, president of Dillard's publishing company, said he died due to a lung infection.

Dillard, a founding member of family band The Dillards out of Salem, Mo., was influential in several ways. Dillard, his brother Rodney and two band mates moved west in 1962, rather than taking the usual route to Nashville. They discovered the burgeoning folk scene in Southern California and helped inspire the country rock movement. They were among the first to attempt to modernize bluegrass music, electrifying their instruments and experimenting with rock elements.

Dillard also helped introduce bluegrass to TV viewers as a member of the unusual family band "The Darlings," who made multiple appearances on "The Andy Griffith Show...