Obituaries Archive

Slide guitarist Tony Duran dies

– January 31, 2012Posted in: Obituaries

It came to our attention today that musician Anthony (Tony) Philip Duran passed away on December 19, 2011 surrounded by family in his home after a two year battle with Prostate Cancer.

Tony Duran was born on October 14, 1945 in Los Angeles, CA to Leonard Lincoln Duran and Henrietta Adeline (Penny) Duran. He graduated from Garfield High School in 1963 in East Los Angeles. Tony then joined the U.S. Army in 1965 and served until 1967 when he was honorably discharged. He was an accomplished musician having contributed slide guitar and vocals to Frank Zappa’s albums “Waka/Jawaka”, “The Grand Wazoo” and “Apostrophe”.

He toured with Zappa’s Grand Wazoo Orchestra, September 1972, and with the Petit Wazoo Orchestra (or the Mothers, as they were called at that time) from October until December 1972. He can also be heard on “Joe’s Domage” and “Imaginary Diseases”. Tony was the lead guitarist of the band Ruben and the Jets, whose first album was produced by Frank Zappa in 1973. Tony had a passion for music and was a dedicated husband, father, grandfather and brother. He recently retired from the Veteran’s Administration Hospital in Temple, Texas after 34 years of faithful service.

Tags: Frank Zappa, Tony Duran

Tom Ardolino (NRBQ) dies

– January 7, 2012Posted in: Obituaries

On January 6, 2012, NRBQ Headquarters posted on Facebook: “We regret to inform you that Tom Ardolino passed away today. Tom will be missed but his spirit lives on through those who were touched by him.”

Tom Ardolino (born January 12, 1955) was a rock drummer best known as a member of NRBQ. Ardolino was initially a fan of the band, and began corresponding and trading tapes with keyboardist and co-founder Terry Adams. On one occasion, original NRBQ drummer Tom Staley did not feel up to returning for an encore, so Adams invited Ardolino to fill in. He performed well enough that when Staley decided to leave the band in 1974, his bandmates agreed that Ardolino was the natural choice as his successor.

Ardolino remained in the lineup until the band went on hiatus in 2004, returning for occasional reunion performances, and lending his support when Adams decided to reclaim the NRBQ name for his new band in 2011. While lead vocals were generally performed by other members of NRBQ, live shows often included a moment where Ardolino would come forward, take the spotlight, and sing, either with a karaoke backing track or with one of the other band members drumming.

Tom Ardolino’s solo album “Unknown Brain” was released by Bumble Bee Records, Japan, on CD in 2004 and in the USA on Mystra Records on vinyl LP, it consists mostly of basement recordings made in 1971-72. The cover states “WARNING: If out-of-tuneness bothers you, do not listen.”

Ardolino was also an avid collector of song poems, having contributed to the “MSR Madness” series of compilations.

Tags: NRBQ, Song Poems, Tom Ardolino

Original Mother Jim “Motorhead” Sherwood dies

– December 26, 2011Posted in: Obituaries

American musician Euclid James “Motorhead” Sherwood, notable for playing soprano, tenor and baritone saxophone, tambourine, vocals and vocal sound effects in Frank Zappa’s original Mothers of Invention, died on December 25th.

Motorhead Sherwood appeared on all the albums of the original Mothers line-up and the posthumous releases “Burnt Weeny Sandwich” and “Weasels Ripped My Flesh”, as well as a number of subsequent Zappa albums. He also appeared in the films “200 Motels”, “Video from Hell” and “Uncle Meat”.

Sherwood and Zappa met in high school in 1956. Sherwood was in a class with Zappa’s brother Bobby, who introduced the two after learning that Sherwood was a collector of blues records. Sherwood sat in with Zappa’s first band, R&B group The Black-Outs. In 1964 Sherwood and Zappa lived in Zappa’s Studio Z in Cucamonga for some time.

Sherwood first joined The Mothers of Invention as a roadie and equipment manager, also contributing sound effects (using both his voice and saxophone) to their first album, 1966′s “Freak Out”. He became a full member around the time of the group’s experimental residence at the Garrick Theater in 1967.

The nickname “Motorhead” was coined by fellow Mothers member Ray Collins, who observed that Sherwood always seemed to be working on repairing cars, trucks or motorcycles, and joked that “it sounds like you’ve got a little motor in your head”. In later years, Sherwood contributed to various projects alongside fellow Mothers alumni, including records by The Grandmothers, Mothers keyboardist Don Preston, Ant-Bee and Sandro Oliva.

Jim “Motorhead” Sherwood was 69 years old.

Tags: Frank Zappa

Latin-American musician Edmundo Ros dies

– October 24, 2011Posted in: Obituaries

Edmundo Ros, the man responsible for popularising Latin American music in the UK, has died on October 21st at the age of 100. Ros was the most accomplished Latin-American musician and vocalist of his generation.

He first achieved fame when the then Princess Elizabeth in the 1940s arrived with a party at London’s Bagatelle Restaurant and made her first public dance to the music of Ros’s band. From that moment he became a household name and remained as such for decades.

Ros was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, on December 7, 1910. His mother was a black Venezuelan and his father was of Scottish origin. Ros played in the Venezuelan Military Academy Band as well as being a tympanist in the Venezuelan Symphony Orchestra. Later he received a music scholarship from the government, under which from 1937 to 1942 he studied harmony, composition and orchestration at the Royal Academy of Music, London.

In August 1940 he formed his own rumba band, and the following year he cut his first tracks, with Parlophone. The group played regularly at the Coconut Grove club in Regent Street. His bands were invariably based in London night-clubs or restaurants. His number The Wedding Samba (1949) sold three million copies, and his album Rhythms of The South (1958) sold one million copies.

Ros went on to own a club, dance school, record company and an artist’s agency, while his band grew and was renamed Edmundo Ros and his Orchestra. He sold millions of records, making hundreds of recordings altogether. In 1975 he disbanded his orchestra, destroying most of its arrangement sheets.

Ros retired and moved to Javea, in Alicante, Spain, and gave his last public performance in 1994.

Tags: Edmundo Ros

Composer/arranger Pete Rugolo dies

– October 19, 2011Posted in: Obituaries

Award-winning composer and arranger Pete Rugolo, who came to prominence as the chief arranger for Stan Kenton’s post-World War II band and later wrote the themes for “The Fugitive” and “Run for Your Life,” has died. He was 95.

As a composer and the chief arranger for Kenton from 1945 to 1949, Rugolo is credited with being a major force in shaping the progressive jazz sound of the Stan Kenton Orchestra. Rugolo won the DownBeat magazine poll as best arranger in 1947 — the first of five wins as best arranger over the next seven years.

After leaving Kenton, Rugolo began a two-year stint as the musical director for Capitol Records in New York, where he was responsible for discovering and recording new acts. Among the artists Rugolo signed was Miles Davis, and he produced the famous “Birth of the Cool” sessions with Davis’ group.

Rugolo was working as an arranger and orchestrator at MGM and was West Coast musical director for Mercury Records when he broke into television in 1958 by writing a new theme for “The Thin Man”. For his extensive work as a composer in television, Rugolo won two Emmys in 1970 and in 1972.

Tags: Pete Rugolo

Composer David Bedford dies

– October 4, 2011Posted in: Obituaries

Composer David Bedford has died of lung cancer, aged 74. Bedford employed a wide range of styles and media in a half-century career that saw him move from iconoclast to eclectic purveyor of music for all seasons and needs.

Bedford was born in Hendon, London, into a musical family. His grandmother, Liza Lehmann, was a composer. His mother, Lesley Duff, was a singer with the English Opera Group in the late 1940s, working with Benjamin Britten. After going to Lancing college, West Sussex, David studied with Lennox Berkeley at the Royal Academy of Music, London, and then, in 1961, with Luigi Nono. On returning to London, he initially earned much of his living by schoolteaching. This was the first impulse for his many compositions for children and amateur performers.

In the late 1960s, Bedford moved into pop music, working with Kevin Ayers and his rock group The Whole World. One band member was Mike Oldfield, whose highly successful Tubular Bells album was released in 1973: Bedford was involved in its first performance, and orchestrated the work for a further album, The Orchestral Tubular Bells (1975). His involvement in the pop world led him to compose several concept albums, including The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1975) and The Odyssey (1976).

Though perhaps best known in concert halls during the 1960s and 70s, Bedford always remained in the public ear, whether as composer of concert or educational music, as an arranger for Billy Bragg, Elvis Costello and many others, or as a film composer, with credits including The Killing Fields (1984), Orlando (1992) and several Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense TV series.

Tags: David Bedford, Mike Oldfield

Hip-hop producer Sylvia Robinson dies at 75

– September 30, 2011Posted in: Obituaries

Sylvia Robinson, a singer, songwriter and record producer who formed the pioneering hip-hop group Sugarhill Gang and made the first commercially successful rap recording with them, died on Thursday in Edison, N.J. She was 75.

Sylvia Robinson had a successful career as a rhythm and blues singer long before she and her husband, Joe Robinson, formed Sugar Hill Records in the 1970s. She sang with Mickey Baker as part of the duo Mickey & Sylvia in the 1950s and had several hits, including “Love Is Strange,” a No. 1 R&B song in 1957. She also had a solo hit, under the name Sylvia, in the spring of 1973 with her sexually charged song “Pillow Talk.”

In the late 1960s, Robinson became one of the few women to produce records in any genre when she and her husband founded All Platinum Records. She played an important role in the career of The Moments, producing their 1970 hit single “Love on a Two-Way Street.”

But she achieved her greatest renown for her decision in 1979 to record the nascent art form known as rapping, which had developed at clubs and dance parties in New York City in the 1970s. She was the mastermind behind the Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight,” the first hip-hop single to become a commercial hit. Some called her “the mother of hip-hop.”

At the time, the label the Robinsons had founded was awash in lawsuits and losing money. Facing financial ruin, Robinson got an inspiration when she heard Lovebug Starski rapping over the instrumental breaks in disco songs at the Harlem World nightclub.

Using Joey Robinson as a talent scout, she found three young, unknown rappers in Englewood — Big Bank Hank, Wonder Mike and Master Gee — and persuaded them to record improvised rhymes as the Sugarhill Gang over a nearly 15-minute rhythm track adapted from Chic’s “Good Times.”

The song was “Rapper’s Delight,” and the Robinsons chartered a new label, Sugar Hill Records, to produce it. It sold more than 8 million copies, opening the gates for other hip-hop artists.

Robinson later signed Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, and in 1982 she was a producer of their seminal song, “The Message.” It was groundbreaking rap about ghetto life that became one of the most powerful social commentaries of its time, laying the groundwork for the gangsta rap of the late 1980s.

Tags: hip-hop, Sugarhill Gang, Sylvia Robinson

Songwriter Jerry Leiber Dies at 78

– August 22, 2011Posted in: Obituaries

Jerry Leiber, whose 60-year partnership with Mike Stoller produced “Stand By Me,” “Hound Dog,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “Young Blood,” “On Broadway,” “Yakety-Yak” and countless other classics, has died of cardiopulmonary failure. He was 78.

Leiber met Stoller in Los Angeles in 1950 when he was still a senior in high school. They had a mutual love of R&B, blues and pop, and began writing music together almost instantly, with Stoller mostly handling the music and Leiber mostly handling the lyrics.

In the early days, they pulled 12-hour days writing on an upright piano in Stoller’s house. Within three years of meeting each other, Leiber and Stoller were the hottest songwriters in the business, writing hits for the Drifters, Coasters and the Robins and many other R&B groups of the era. In 1956, their career went to a higher level when Elvis Presley took “Hound Dog” – which they wrote for Big Mama Thornton four years earlier – and turned it into a gigantic hit.

Despite their success with Presley, most of the acts that Leiber and Stoller worked with were black. “I felt black,” Leiber told Rolling Stone in 1990. “I was as far as I was concerned. And I wanted to be black for lots of reasons. They were better musicians, they were better athletes, they were not uptight about sex, and they knew how to enjoy life better than most people.”

Not all of their songs were as innocent as they seemed. “Pure and simple, ‘Poison Ivy’ [a 1959 hit they wrote for The Coasters] is a metaphor for a sexually transmitted disease – or the clap – hardly a topic for a song that hit the Top Ten in the Spring of 1959,” Leiber said in 2009.

The hits continued into the early 1960s with such classics as “Stand By Me” and “Spanish Harlem,” but when the Beatles broke in America in early 1964, the music industry changed very quickly. The duo never stopped working together, and in 1972 they produced “Stuck In The Middle With You,” which was recorded by Stealers Wheel. In 1995, their catalog of hits was turned into the Broadway musical Smokey Joe’s Cafe, and this past May, American Idol devoted an entire evening to their music.

(Source: Rolling Stone)

Tags: Elvis Presley, Jerry Leiber

Electronica pioneer Conrad Schnitzler dies

– August 8, 2011Posted in: Obituaries

German musician and composer Conrad Schnitzler died of stomach cancer on August 4. Schnitzler (born 1937) was an institution in the German electronic music scene for thirty years. He studied with Joseph Beuys in the mid 1960’s, and in the late sixties joined the then fledgling German rock band Tangerine Dream. He added a bizarre, conceptual approach to Tangerine Dream that catapulted the band to legendary status, documented on the bands first album “Electronic Meditation”. Schnitzler left after that first album, forming the band Kluster with his friends Moebius and Roedelius.

Kluster recorded and released three albums before Schnitzler again left, this time to pursue his own work under his own name. Since the demise of Kluster, Schnitzler released hundreds of albums, both on his own, and on various labels around the world.

Allmusic.com writes: “One of the prime figures in the growth of Kraut-rock, Conrad Schnitzler made important contributions to the early history of Kraftwerk and Kluster. Like many in the Kraut-rock community, Schnitzler was greatly inspired by influences in the visual artistic world as well as the musical; he studied sculpture with Joseph Beuys, and composition with Karlheinz Stockhausen, also looking to John Cage and Pierre Schaeffer for inspiration. By 1969, he was working with Tangerine Dream, with whom he recorded Electronic Meditation. The album became one of the most distinctive in TD’s discography, and Schnitzler takes much of the credit for its chance-taking approach.”

Tags: Conrad Schnitzler, Kluster, Tangerine Dream

Larry “Wild Man” Fischer dies

– June 17, 2011Posted in: Obituaries

Lawrence Wayne Fischer, better known as Wild Man Fischer, died in his hometown Los Angeles on June 15. He was 66. Fischer was a prolific songwriter, often classified as an “outsider” artist. He was notable for being responsible for Rhino Records’ first release, Go To Rhino Records in 1975.

Fischer was institutionalized at age 16 for attacking his mother with a knife. He was later diagnosed with various mental disorders. Following his release from the hospital, Fischer wandered the streets of Los Angeles singing his unique brand of songs for 10¢ to passers-by. He was discovered by Frank Zappa in 1965, with whom he recorded his first album “An Evening With Wild Man Fischer” in 1968.

Over the years Fischer would record sporadically. His output includes three albums for Rhino Records.

In 2005 Wild Man Fischer was the suject of “Derailroaded: Inside The Mind Of Larry Wild Man Fischer“, the definitive documentary about his life and work. Sadly, his most essential album “An Evening With Wild Man Fischer” is not available on cd.

The Fischer family is requesting that if you wish to honor Larry’s memory please make a donation to the National Alliance on Mental Illness: www.nami.org

Tags: Wild Man Fischer

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Obituaries Archive

Slide guitarist Tony Duran dies

Tom Ardolino (NRBQ) dies

Original Mother Jim “Motorhead” Sherwood dies

Latin-American musician Edmundo Ros dies

Composer/arranger Pete Rugolo dies

Composer David Bedford dies

Hip-hop producer Sylvia Robinson dies at 75

Songwriter Jerry Leiber Dies at 78

Electronica pioneer Conrad Schnitzler dies

Larry “Wild Man” Fischer dies

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