2020

Ellis Marsalis Jr, New Orleans jazz piano legend, died April 1, 2020

Ellis Louis Marsalis Jr. (November 14, 1934 – April 1, 2020) was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and was a jazz pianist and educator. Although he was active since the late 1940s, Ellis Marsalis Jr came to greater attention in the 1980s and 1990s as the patriarch of a musical family, with his sons Branford Marsalis and Wynton Marsalis rising to international acclaim. Ellis Marsalis Jr played saxophone during high school but switched to piano while studying classical music at Dillard University, where he graduated in 1955 before attending graduate school at Loyola University New Orleans. In the 1950s and…
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Adam Schlesinger, Fountains of Wayne Singer, died March 31, 2020

Adam Schlesinger (October 31, 1967 – March 31, 2020) was an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and guitarist who won three Emmy Awards, a Grammy Award, and the ASCAP Pop Music Award, and was also nominated for Academy, Tony, and Golden Globe Awards. Adam Lyons Schlesinger was the son of publicist Barbara (née Bernthal) and Stephen Schlesinger and grew up in Manhattan and Montclair, New Jersey. He attended Montclair High School and went on to Williams College where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy. He was a founding member of the bands Fountains of Wayne, Ivy, and Tinted…
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Wallace Roney, US jazz trumpeter, died March 31, 2020

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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Joe Diffie, country music singer, died March 29, 2020

Joe Diffie (December 28, 1958 – March 29, 2020) was an American country music singer born into a musical family in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1958. After working as a demo singer in the 1980s, he signed with Epic Records’ Nashville division in 1990, and between then and 2004, Joe Diffie charted 35 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, five of which peaked at number one. These were his debut release “Home”, “If the Devil Danced (In Empty Pockets)”, “Third Rock from the Sun”, “Pickup Man” (his longest-lasting number-one song, at four weeks) and “Bigger Than the Beatles”. In…
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Alan Merrill died March 29, 2020

Alan Merrill (February 19, 1951 – March 29, 2020) was born Allan Preston Sachs and was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor and model. In the early 1970s, Alan Merrill was the first Westerner to achieve pop star status in Japan. He was the co-writer of, and lead singer on, the first released version of the song “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll”, which was recorded by the Arrows in 1975. Allan Preston Sachs (Alan Merrill) was born in The Bronx, New York City, to two jazz musicians, singer Helen Merrill and saxophone/clarinet player Aaron Sachs. Merrill was primarily a vocalist…
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Jan Howard, country music singer, died March 28, 2020

Jan Howard (March 13, 1929 – March 28, 2020) was born Lula Grace Johnson and was an American country music singer, songwriter, and author. Born in Missouri, Jan Howard had her first hit in 1960 with The One You Slip Around With, and had a string of others including Evil on Your Mind and Bad Seed. As a singer, she placed 30 singles on the Billboard country songs chart, was a Grand Ole Opry member and was nominated for several major awards. Jan Howard had a No. 1 country hit For Loving You with Bill Anderson and wrote hits for…
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Bill Rieflin drummer for King Crimson and R.E.M. died on March 24, 2020

William (Bill) Frederick Rieflin (September 29, 1960 – March 24, 2020) was an American musician. Bill Rieflin came to fame in the 1990s mainly for his work as a drummer with groups such as Ministry, the Revolting Cocks, Lard, KMFDM, Pigface, Swans, Chris Connelly, and Nine Inch Nails. Bill Rieflin began his professional musical career in his hometown of Seattle in 1975, when he was in The Telepaths, he then played drums for The Blackouts starting in 1979 with his bandmates including Mike Davidson, Paul Barker, Roland Barker and Erich Werner. Bill Rieflin was involved in the creation of Ministry’s…
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Manu Dibango, jazz legend, died March 24, 2020

Emmanuel N’Djoké “Manu” Dibango (December 12, 1933 – March 24, 2020) was a Cameroonian musician and songwriter who played saxophone and vibraphone. He developed a musical style fusing jazz, funk, and traditional Cameroonian music. He was best known for his 1972 single “Soul Makossa.” Manu Dibango was born in Douala, Cameroon. His father, Michel Manfred N’Djoké Dibango, was a civil servant, and his mother a fashion designer, running her own small business. Both her ethnic group, the Duala, and his, the Yabassi, viewed this union of different ethnic groups with some disdain. In Cameroon, your ethnicity is dictated by your…
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Kenny Rogers, Country music legend dies aged 81

Kenneth Ray Rogers (August 21, 1938 – March 20, 2020) was an American singer, songwriter, actor, record producer, and entrepreneur. Kenny Rogers was the fourth of eight children born on August 21, 1938, in Houston, Texas. He was a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. Although he was most successful with country audiences, Kenny Rogers had more than 120 hit singles across various music genres, topped the country and pop album charts for more than 200 weeks in the United States, and sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all…
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Barbara Martin from The Supremes died March 4, 2020

Barbara Martin was born Barbara Diane Martin Richardson in Detroit, on June 1, 1943, and was an American singer, best known for being one of the original members of legendary Motown group The Supremes. After Betty McGlown left the Primettes, as she was getting married, Barbara Martin replaced her in the group in 1960. She and her group mates, Diana Ross (then known as Diane), Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard, signed a recording contract with Motown founder Berry Gordy on January 15, 1961 as the Supremes, a name that Ballard had chosen (as she was the only group member in…
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