Tag Archive: deadmusicians 2020
Ken Hensley (August 24, 1945 – November 4, 2020) was an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer, best known for his work with Uriah Heep during the 1970s. He wrote or co-wrote the majority of Uriah Heep’s songs during this period, including the hit singles “Lady in Black” (on which he sang lead vocals), “Easy Livin’” and “Stealin’”, as well as “Look at Yourself”, on which he also sang lead vocals, and “Free Me” Kenneth William David Hensley was born in Plumstead, south-east London, Hensley moved with his parents, three brothers and sister to Stevenage, Hertfordshire, in 1945. He learned…
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Tommy DeVito, born Gaetano DeVito (June 19, 1928 – September 21, 2020) was an American musician and singer, best known as a founding member, vocalist, and lead guitarist of rock band the Four Seasons. Tommy DeVito was born on June 19, 1928 in New Jersey, United States, the youngest of nine children in an big, traditional Italian-American family. At 8 years old, he taught himself to play his brother’s guitar by listening to country music on the radio, by 12 he was playing for tips in neighborhood bars and by 16, he had his own R&B band and was making $25…
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Ronald Nathan Bell (November 1, 1951 – September 9, 2020) was a composer, singer, songwriter, arranger, producer, saxophonist and co-founding member of Kool & the Gang. The band recorded nine No. 1 R&B singles in the 1970s and 80s, including its No. 1 pop single “Celebration”. The group is honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Ronald Bell sadly died at his home in the United States Virgin Islands on September 9, 2020, at age 68. No cause was given, but the death was described as sudden. Check out Kool &…
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Paul William “Tonka” Chapman (June 9, 1954 – June 9, 2020) was a Welsh rock guitarist known as Tonka Chapman and best known for his work in bands such as UFO, Waysted and Lone Star. Paul Chapman was well known by his nickname “Tonka”, allegedly given to him because of his indestructible qualities. Tonka Chapman’s first notable band was when he replaced Gary Moore as guitarist in Skid Row in December 1971, but his time in the band was fairly short and only lasted until July 1972. His next band was Kimla Taz, which he was guitarist in from December…
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Patricia Eva “Bonnie” Pointer (July 11, 1950 – June 8, 2020) was an American singer, and founding member of the legendary vocal group, The Pointer Sisters, as well as a solo performer. Bonnie Pointer and her youngest sister June began singing together in their father’s West Oakland Church of God in California. They formed The Pointers, also known as The Pair, in 1969. After their sister Anita joined the duo that same year, they changed their name to The Pointer Sisters and recorded several singles for Atlantic Records between 1971 and 1972. In December 1972, they recruited oldest sister Ruth…
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Wilbur James Cobb (January 20, 1929 – May 24, 2020) was an American jazz drummer, known as Jimmy Cobb, and a member of the legendary Miles Davis’s First Great Sextet. Wilbur James (Jimmy) Cobb was born in Washington, D.C. on January 20, 1929 to Wilbur Cobb, a security guard and taxi driver, and Katherine, a domestic worker. As a teenager in the mid-1940s he became obsessed with jazz, listening to American wartime broadcasts and washing dishes in diners to save money to buy a drum kit. His dream was to learn the polyrhythmic innovations of the bebop drum masters Kenny…
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Bessie Regina Norris (December 21, 1953 – May 10, 2020), was known as Betty Wright, and was an American soul and R&B singer, songwriter and backing vocalist. Born in Miami, Florida, Betty Wright was the youngest of seven children of Rosa Akins Braddy-Wright and her second husband, McArthur Norris. Betty Wright began her professional career at the age of two when her brothers and sisters formed a gospel group called “the Echoes of Joy”, and she contributed to the vocals on the group’s first album which was released in 1956. “The Echoes of Joy” performed together until 1965, when Betty…
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John Prine (October 10, 1946 – April 7, 2020) was an American country folk singer-songwriter. He was active as a composer, recording artist, and live performer from the early 1970s until his death, was known for an often humorous style of country music with elements of protest and social commentary, and was widely regarded as one of the most influential songwriters of his generation. John Prine was born and raised in the Maywood suburb of Chicago and started playing guitar at age 14. He attended classes at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music, and Proviso East High School in…
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Wallace Roney (May 25, 1960 – March 31, 2020) was an American jazz trumpeter, born in Philadelphia. He was found to have perfect pitch at the age of four, and began his musical and trumpet studies at Philadelphia’s Settlement School of Music before going onto the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, in Washington, D.C, where he studied trumpet with Langston Fitzgerald of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. When he entered the Duke Ellington School, Wallace Roney had already made his recording debut at the age of just 15 with Nation and Haki Mahbuti, and at that time met, among others,…
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Bashar Barakah Jackson (July 20, 1999 – February 19, 2020) known as Pop Smoke, was an American rapper and songwriter. Pop Smoke was born on July 20, 1999, in Brooklyn, New York, to a Jamaican mother and a Panamanian father. He spent his childhood in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn. He started dealing drugs, at a young age, and spent two years on house after being arrested on weapons charges. He began his music career in 2018 while hanging around other recording artists during their studio sessions. He started remixing popular songs within the New York City drill music scene,…
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