passings
Bobby Womack, singer, songwriter, guitarist, March 4, 1944-June 27, 2014
The Womack Brothers (featuring Bobby, then 17, on lead vocals), “Couldn’t Hear Nobody Pray,” 1961
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lagniappe
art beat
William Eggleston (1939-)
*****
random thoughts
We’re as rich as we are receptive.
passings
Horace Silver, pianist, composer, bandleader, September 2, 1928-June 18, 2014
Horace Silver Quintet,* “Song for My Father,” live (TV show), Denmark, 1968
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lagniappe
art beat
William Eggleston (1939-)
*****
*HS, piano; Bill Hardman, trumpet; Bennie Maupin, tenor saxophone; John Williams, bass; Billy Cobham, drums.
passings
Gerry Goffin, lyricist, February 11, 1939-June 19, 2014
The Shirelles, “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” (G. Goffin, C. King), 1961
***
The Drifters, “Up on the Roof” (G. Goffin, C. King), 1962
***
Aretha Franklin, “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” (G. Goffin, C. King, J. Wexler), 1967
passings
Jimmy Scott, singer, July 17, 1925-June 12, 2014
“Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” live, New York (Birdland), 2000
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lagniappe
reading table
If you were to open up Iona’s chest and pour all the grief out of it, you would probably flood the entire planet, yet it is not visible.
—Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), “Grief” (often rendered as “Misery”; translated from Russian by Rosamund Bartlett)
passings
Bob Abrahamian, soul music DJ (WHPK, Sitting in the Park), historian, archivist, September 25, 1978-June 5, 2014
Dolores Gibson, “I Got A Feeling,” 1960
*****
Byrdie Green, “Tremblin’,” 1962
*****
Deanie Parker, “Each Step I Take,” 1964
*****
These tracks opened his last radio show (5/4/14).
passings
DJ Rashad, October 9, 1979-April 26, 2014
Live, Chicago (Pitchfork Music Festival), 2013
*****
“I Don’t Give A Fuck” (sampling Tupac Shakur’s dialogue in Juice), 2013
*****
“I’m Gone” (remixing Gil Scott-Heron’s “Home Is Where The Hatred Is”), 2011
passings
Frankie Knuckles, DJ, January 18, 1955-March 31, 2014
2013 Boiler Room set, excerpt (Lou Rawls, “You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine,” remix)
***
It could be plausibly argued that Knuckles was as important to the birth of contemporary dance music as James Brown was to soul or Chuck Berry to rock ‘n’ roll. And like those innovators, Knuckles helped nurture a deceptively sophisticated sound that celebrated and embraced outsiders and misfits — in Knuckles’ case, the gay African-American and Hispanic communities.
***
—Greg Kot, Chicago Tribune (obituary), 4/1/14
serendipity*
Christopher DeLaurenti (sampling Marvin Gaye, “What’s Going On” [1971]), live, Seattle, 2009
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lagniappe
reading table: passings
Bill Knott, February 17, 1940-March 12, 2014
Night Thought
Compared to one’s normal clothes, pajamas
are just as caricature as the dreams
they bare: farce-skins, facades, unserious
soft versions of the mode diem, they seem
to have come from a posthumousness;
floppy statues of ourselves, slack seams
of death. Their form mimics the decay
that will fit us so comfortably someday.
*****
*This I bumped into yesterday, listening to the radio (WFMU: Miniature Minotaurs [Kurt Gottschalk]).
passings
Robert Ashley, composer, March 28, 1930-March 3, 2014
“The Park” (1978)
#1
***
#2
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Here I am working against time . . .
—Robert Ashley, “The Park”
passings
Bunny Rugs (AKA Bunny Clarke, William Clarke), singer
February 6, 1948-February 2, 2014
Live (with Sly & Robbie), “Revolution,” “Love Is Blind,” New York, 2013
***
Live (with Third World), “Now That We Found Love,” Los Angeles, 2013
***
Recording (Lee Perry, prod.), “Be Thankful,” 1975
music clip of the day 