Obituaries Archive

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

Producer Martin Rushent dies

– June 5, 2011Posted in: Obituaries

British record producer and musician Martin Rushent has died. He was 63.

Rushent entered the music business in the early 1970s as an engineer working on records by T. Rex, David Essex, Fleetwood Mac, Yes and Shirley Bassey amongst others. However, it was after punk that he came into his own as a producer working on records by Buzzcocks, Generation X, XTC, 999 and The Stranglers.

In the early 1980s he started his own record label, Genetic, which was going to sign new romantic acts Visage, Ultravox and Spandau Ballet, but problems at their parent record company scuppered that plan. Meanwhile he invested £250,000 in setting up a state-of-the-art recording studio at his Berkshire home. The first fruits were the debut single by ex-Buzzcock Pete Shelley, “Homosapien”, and subsequent album of the same name; however, it was the success of The Human League and their breakthrough 1981 album Dare which cemented his reputation as a producer.

He is credited as one of the pioneers of remixing with his cut-and-paste version of Dare, 1982′s Love and Dancing. He also produced other acts at the time including Altered Images and The Go-Go’s. In 1983, after experiencing problems working with The Human League, Rushent resigned as the band’s producer. He then sold Genetic Studios and for a short time he worked as a consultant for Virgin Records.

Some years later, Rushent was briefly involved in the rave scene in the early 1990s with the creation of Gush at Newbury airfield. In 1994/5 he ran “Roundabout”, a Thursday-night showcase for unsigned bands at The Nag’s Head, High Wycombe. Recently, he had been active again as a producer with Hazel O’Connor’s Hidden Heart.

Tags: Buzzcocks, Martin Rushent, The Human League

Gil Scott-Heron dies, aged 62

– May 28, 2011Posted in: Obituaries

As confirmed by a publicist for his record label, Gil Scott-Heron, the singer-songwriter and poet, has died yesterday. He was 62.

Influential in R&B, spoken word, and hip-hop, Scott-Heron had a strong run of albums in the 1970s. He wrote the song “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” and the phrase entered the cultural lexicon after appearing on his 1970 album Small Talk at 125th & Lennox. Scott-Heron later battled drug problems and was incarcerated for a period during the 2000s, but he returned to music in 2010 and released the acclaimed “I’m New Here” followed by the Jamie xx collaboration “We’re New Here” earlier this year.

Scott-Heron began his recording career in 1970 with the LP “Small Talk at 125th and Lenox”. Bob Thiele of Flying Dutchman Records produced the album, and Scott-Heron was accompanied by Eddie Knowles and Charlie Saunders on conga and David Barnes on percussion and vocals. The album’s 15 tracks dealt with themes such as the superficiality of television and mass consumerism, the hypocrisy of some would-be Black revolutionaries, white middle-class ignorance of the difficulties faced by inner-city residents, and homophobia.

Scott-Heron’s 1971 album “Pieces of a Man” used more conventional song structures than the loose, spoken-word feel of “Small Talk”. He was joined by Johnny Pate (conductor), Brian Jackson on keyboards, piano, Ron Carter on bass and bass guitar, drummer Bernard “Pretty” Purdie, Burt Jones playing electric guitar, and Hubert Laws on flute and saxophone, with Thiele producing again. Scott-Heron’s third album, “Free Will”, was released in 1972.

1974 saw another LP collaboration with Brian Jackson, the critically acclaimed opus “Winter in America”, with Bob Adams on drums and Danny Bowens on bass. The album contained Scott-Heron’s most cohesive material and featured more of Jackson’s creative input than his previous albums had. “Winter in America” has been regarded by many critics as the two musicians most artistic effort. The following year, Scott-Heron and Jackson also released “Midnight Band: The First Minute of a New Day”. A live album, “It’s Your World”, followed in 1976 and a recording of spoken poetry, “The Mind of Gil Scott-Heron”, was released in 1979.

In 1979, Scott-Heron played at the No Nukes concerts at Madison Square Garden. The concerts were organized by Musicians United for Safe Energy to protest the use of nuclear energy following the Three Mile Island accident. Scott-Heron’s song “We Almost Lost Detroit”, written about a previous accident at a nuclear power plant, was included in the No Nukes album of concert highlights. (We Almost Lost Detroit is the title of a book about the accident by John G. Fuller.) Scott-Heron was a frequent critic of President Ronald Reagan and his conservative policies.

Scott-Heron recorded and released only four albums during the 1980s. He was dropped by Arista Records in 1985 and quit recording, though he continued to tour. Also that year, Scott-Heron helped compose and sing the song “Let Me See Your I.D.” on the Artists United Against Apartheid album Sun City, containing the famous line, “The first time I heard there was trouble in the Middle East, I thought they were talking about Pittsburgh.” In 1993, he signed to TVT Records and released “Spirits”, an album that included the seminal track “‘Message to the Messengers”.

Scott-Heron is known in many circles as “the Godfather of rap” and is widely considered to be one of the genre’s founding fathers. Given the political consciousness that lies at the foundation of his work, he can also be called a founder of political rap. “Message to the Messengers” was a plea for the new generation of rappers to speak for change rather than perpetuate the current social situation, and to be more articulate and artistic.

Tags: Gil Scott-Heron

Singer Norma Zimmer dies

– May 13, 2011Posted in: Obituaries

“Champagne Lady” soprano Norma Zimmer of “The Lawrence Welk Show”, who recorded both under her own name and also as a studio singer who worked with Frank Sinatra and other pop stars, died peacefully at 87 on May 10th.

Zimmer was Lawrence Welk’s lead female singerfrom 1960 to 1982. She replaced Alice Lon, who left Welk after a longlasting mutual dispute. Zimmer often sang solos plus duets with tenor Jimmy Roberts and danced onscreen with Welk.

Since 1987 Zimmer appeared with the Welk orchestra on PBS specials and original repeats, and also took part in a tribute to Welk’s show in early 2011 at the Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills.

Norma Zimmer was born in July, 1923 in Larson, Idaho and grew up in Seattle. She sang with The Girlfriends quartet that performed with Sinatra, Dean Martin and Bing Crosby, including on Crosby’s “White Christmas”, one of her many uncredited recordings.

Zimmer’s film and TV appearances included the 1950 film “Mr. Music” with Bing Crosby and an episode of “I Love Lucy”. She was the voice of the White Rose in the 1951 Disney film, “Alice in Wonderland.”

Tags: Lawrence Welke, Norma Zimmer

Poly Styrene (X-Ray Spex) dies at 53

– April 26, 2011Posted in: Obituaries

Punk singer Poly Styrene (born Marianne Elliot-Said), former singer with the X-Ray Spex, has died at the age of 53 after suffering from cancer. She was one of the first female punk icons, whose unorthodox yet infectious style was highly influential.

Poly Styrene formed her band after watching the Sex Pistols perform on Hastings Pier on her 18th birthday and became known for her unpolished vocals and energetic rallying cries against consumerism and environmental destruction.

X-Ray Spex’s signature tune was Oh Bondage Up Yours!, a riotous rejection of social and gender norms that began with Poly Styrene’s spoken line: “Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard.”

The band released just one album, Germ Free Adolescents, in 1978, before splitting up. The singer went on to record a more subtle and subdued solo album, Translucence, in 1980, before retreating from the music industry to join the Hare Krishnas.

Former Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock praised the “general joie de vivre nuttiness” shown in songs like Oh Bondage Up Yours! “She wouldn’t kow-tow to even what the punk fashions should be, I think that’s what that song is about,” he told BBC 6 Music.

Billy Bragg told the radio station that Oh Bondage Up Yours! was a “slap in the face” to male punk bands and rock journalists.

Poly Styrene occasionally re-emerged into the limelight, and released her third solo album, Generation Indigo, last month.

Tags: Poly Styrene, X-Ray Spex

Dot Records founder Randy Wood dies

– April 14, 2011Posted in: Obituaries

Dot Records founder Randy Wood died Saturday at his La Jolla home of complications from injuries sustained in a fall down stairs in his house. He was 94.

Wood was a music industry innovator. His practice of having white singers such as Pat Boone record black artists’ hits is credited by some with helping black musicians – and early rock music – break into the commercial mainstream. Pop stations that had limited airplay mainly to white artists found room for the remakes, which helped introduce the black R&B sound to a white audience.

When Wood opened a small appliance store in 1945 in Gallatin, Tenn., he stocked pop records, but customers kept asking for R&B. So Wood started a mail-order business for the hard-to-find records and advertised it on a late-night R&B show he put together for WLAC, a Nashville radio station with a national presence. By 1950, the store had become Randy’s Record Shop and was soon selling almost 500,000 records a month. Wood also launched an independent record label and named it Dot because it was “simple and easy to remember,” his son said.

The first group to put Dot on the pop charts, in 1952, was a group made up of mostly Western Kentucky College students who went by the school’s nickname, the Hilltoppers. Their first Dot record, “Tryin’,” made it to No. 7.

Boone moved beyond recording covers and became Dot’s most successful artist, rivaling Elvis Presley’s chart dominance.

The company also had other hits in the 1950s and ’60s, including “Pipeline” by the Surfaris, “Calcutta” by Lawrence Welk and “Melody of Love” by Billy Vaughn, a Hilltopper who became Dot’s musical director. From 1954 to 1956 Dot specialized in R&B cover records. The Fontane Sisters, who had sung backup for Perry Como, had a gold record with “Hearts of Stone,” which had been recorded by several black artists.
Among Boone’s hits were remakes of Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti” and the Charms’ “Two Hearts.”

Dot Records and the Wood family moved to Hollywood in 1956, and the company became known for reissuing recordings by small independent labels, including “Come Go With Me” by the Del Vikings and “From a Jack to a King” by Ned Miller. In 1957, Paramount Pictures bought Dot, and Wood stayed on as president for a decade. ABC bought Dot in 1974 and discontinued the label three years later.

Wood started another label, Ranwood Records, with Larry Welk in 1968. It became the outlet for many artists associated with Lawrence Welk and remains in business in Santa Monica.

Tags: Dot Records, Randy Wood

Violinist Billy Bang Dies

– April 12, 2011Posted in: Obituaries

Violinist Billy Bang died on April 11. According to an associate, he had been suffering from lung cancer. Bang was 63. Born in Mobile, Alabama as William Vincent Walker, Bang was raised in the Bronx and began playing the violin at a very young age. He was given the nickname Billy Bang in homage to a cartoon character.

Although he won a scholarship to a prestigious boarding prep school in New England, Bang ended up dropping out and returning to the Bronx. Alienated from formal education, Bang gave up the violin. He was drafted into the Army at the age of 18 and served in Vietnam until his discharge a few years later.

Although he got his G.E.D. in the Army and studied pre-law and even went to law school for a short time, Bang bounced around at various jobs after his release from the military and eventually picked up the violin again. He dedicated himself to relearning the instrument and became part of the downtown loft jazz scene of the 70s.

Bang played briefly with the Sun Ra Arkestra and in 1977 inspired by the approach of the World Saxophone Quartet he formed the New York String Trio with John Lindberg and James Emery, with whom he would play regularly for many years. Bang also developed his own career as a solo artist and bandleader. Over the next 20-30 years, Bang would collaborate with many of the greats of the improvising jazz scene, including William Parker, Hamiett Bluiett, Sun Ra, Don Cherry, David Murray and many others. He recorded over 30 albums including many for the Canadian Justin Time label.

Tags: Billy Bang, Jazz, Sun Ra

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Obituaries Archive

Hip-hop producer Sylvia Robinson dies at 75

Songwriter Jerry Leiber Dies at 78

Electronica pioneer Conrad Schnitzler dies

Larry “Wild Man” Fischer dies

Producer Martin Rushent dies

Gil Scott-Heron dies, aged 62

Singer Norma Zimmer dies

Poly Styrene (X-Ray Spex) dies at 53

Dot Records founder Randy Wood dies

Violinist Billy Bang Dies

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