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2016 - Is it my imagination or is....

Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2016 1:51 pm
by Sir Purrcival
this a year where we have lost an inordinate amount of famous people and it isn't even the end of April yet.

Here is a partial list:

Natalie Cole - singer, niece to Dionne Warwick
Craig Strickland - country singer
Pat Harrington Jr.-Schneider the maintenance man from One Day at a Time.
Otis Clay, soul singer
David Bowie
David Margulies, character actor who played "Ghostbusters" mayor and "Ace Ventura" doctor, died Jan. 11 at 78.
Rene Angelil, husband and manager of Celine Dion, died Jan. 14 of cancer at age 73. The "My Heart Will Go On" singer's brother Daniel Dion died two days later.
Alan Rickman, "Harry Potter" actor and "Die Hard" villain, died of cancer at 69 on Jan. 14.
Dan Haggerty, "Grizzly Adams" actor and '70s star best-known for his beard and rugged looks, died of cancer at 74 on Jan. 15.
Glenn Frey, The Eagles guitarist and co-founder, died at 67 on Jan. 18. Frey co-wrote hits like "Hotel California" with Don Henley.
Jimmy Bain, former Dio and Rainbow bassist
Abe Vigoda of Barney Miller fame
Paul Kantner, Jefferson Airplane co-founder
Signe Anderson, the original Jefferson Airplane singer who was replaced by Grace Slick, died at 74 on Jan. 28, the same day as Kantner.
Frank Finlay, dramatic actor
Joe Alaskey, a voice actor originally from Troy, N.Y., died from cancer at age 63 on Feb. 4. He was the principal voice of multiple Looney Tunes characters, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Sylvester
Tweety Bird, after Mel Blanc's death in 1989 and voiced Yosemite Sam in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"
Maurice White, Earth, Wind & Fire
George Gaynes, Commandant Lassard in "Police Academy"
Harper Lee,"To Kill a Mockingbird,"
Sonny James, country singer
Lennie Baker of Sha Na Na
George Kennedy, "Cool Hand Luke" ,"Naked Gun", "Airport" etc. etc.
Tony Warren, creator of "Coronation Street,"
Pat Conroy, author of "The Prince of Tides" and "The Great Santini,"
George Martin, producer for The Beatles
Keith Emerson, Emerson, Lake and Palmer
Frank Sinatra Jr.
Joe Santos, "The Rockford Files" and "The Sopranos"
Garry Shandling, comedian
Patty Duke, Oscar and Emmy-winning actress
Ronnie Corbett, British comedian and star of "The Two Ronnies,"
Merle Haggard, country musician
Blackjack Mulligan, a former New York Jets player, '70s WWE star and father of pro wrestlers Barry Windham, Kendall Windham and former SU wrestler Mike Rotunda (a.k.a. Irwin R. Schyster or
I.R.S.) and grandfather of Bray Wyatt and Bo Dallas, died April 7 at 73.
Doris Roberts, "Everybody Loves Raymond," "Remington Steel"
Joanie "Chyna" Laurer, WWE wrestling legend and Rochester native, died April 20 at 46.
Guy Hamilton, director of "Goldfinger" and three more James Bond films
Prince, music legend behind hits "Purple Rain," "When Doves Cry," "Batdance," "1999," "Kiss" and others, died April 21 at 57.
Lonnie Mack, blues guitar great who inspired everyone from Eric Clapton and Keith Richards to Stevie Ray Vaughan and Joe Bonamassa, died April 21 at 74.

And this doesn't include a lot of other talented musicians, writers, trend setters.

Re: 2016 - Is it my imagination or is....

Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2016 8:37 pm
by sj-roc
I think it's largely down to the fact that most of those people were simply old. The average human life span these days is around 75-85 and a lot of those on your list were either near, within or even beyond those years.

We're also living in an unprecedented social media era where people can mourn the passing of public figures together with strangers online, which I think also adds a degree of immediacy to all these deaths. It's become a cliché for the famed to trend on twitter when they die.

There are three guys in their 70s right now who I believe will break the needle on anything you've ever seen before in terms of press coverage of and social media reaction to their eventual deaths in the years ahead: Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan.

I was unaware of Lonnie Mack's recent passing until reading this post. He dabbled in other sounds but was largely known as a bluesman, and an underrated one at that. From my own readings on the matter, he was largely disdainful of the business side of the music industry — not completely unlike rocker Steve Miller who recently made some widely reported, very singular comments on the subject — and preferred a lower-profile existence with smaller record labels that allowed him greater creative control over his musical output. He recorded only sporadically for most of his career and had all but given up on it by the late 1970s, aside from the notable exception of when he teamed up with Stevie Ray Vaughan for his 1985 comeback project Strike Like Lightning. A great album for any blues fan. This is a live version of Double Whammy by LM + SRV, one of the cuts from SLL.

[video][/video]

Re: 2016 - Is it my imagination or is....

Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 9:39 am
by Spud387
This is going to be more of the norm going forward. With TV and movies taking off in the 70's(ish), music being more accessible and more people becoming household names due to TV, Radio, etc more people we recognize or remember are getting old.

Re: 2016 - Is it my imagination or is....

Posted: Sun May 08, 2016 6:58 pm
by Robbie
With all these celebrities passing away, will you make a point of attending their performances whenever they perform locally?

I mentioned this another thread when Michael Jackson passed away in 2009. Did any of you attend his Victory tour concert with his brothers in Vancouver in November 16-18, 1984?

Tickets were only $40.00 - perhaps quite a lot of money by 1984 standards but still a once in lifetime experience and I'm sure those who attended had no regrets, especially since the Lions were eliminated in WDF a week prior and there were no conflicts in having to watch the Lions play on Grey Cup Sunday on November 18, 1984.

Two more recent articles about his concert in November 16-18, 1984:
http://www.straight.com/blogra/771441/3 ... ctory-tour
http://home.mj-upbeat.com/2015/11/18/to ... mber-18th/

Re: 2016 - Is it my imagination or is....

Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2017 1:54 pm
by Robbie
This trend of celebrity deaths has certainly continued into late 2016 and early 2017 they include those who were well known throughout the 1980's and 1990's:

Florence Henderson
Alan Thicke
Zsa Zsa Gabor
George Michael
Carrie Fisher
Debbie Reynolds
George Steele (wrestling)
Bill Paxton
Judge Joseph A. Wapner from the original The People's Court series.