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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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Pop Smoke: Rapper shot dead on February 19, 2020

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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Neil Peart, drummer and lyricist for rock band Rush, died January 7, 2020.

Neil Peart (September 12, 1952 – January 7, 2020) was a Canadian musician and writer best known as the drummer and lyricist of the rock band Rush. He received numerous awards for his musical performances, including an induction into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1983. His drumming was renowned for its technical proficiency, and his live performances for their exacting nature and stamina. Neil Ellwood Peart was born in Hamilton, Ontario and grew up in Port Dalhousie, Ontario (now part of St. Catharines). In his teens, he floated between regional bands in pursuit of a career as a…
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