Thursday, August 15, 2013

Rita Reys aka Maria Everdina Reijs aka 'Europe's First Lady of Jazz'

Singer -- via the Guardian.



Jody Payne

Guitarist; long-time associate of Willie Nelson -- via Rolling Stone.






Haji aka Barbarella Catton

Actress, dancer, and burlesque performer -- via the BBC. One of the trio of deadly protagonists in "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!"




John Billingham

NASA official who created SETI, the project that searches for extraterrestrial intelligence -- via the New York Times.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Alhaja Batili Alake aka the Queen of Waka

Singer and composer -- via pmnewsnigeria.com.




Johnny Logan

Former MLB player -- via the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

Eddie Perez

Saxophonist and singer; founding member of El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico -- via the New York Times.






Andre Verchuren

Accordionist -- via the Independent.





Tim Wright

Bassist and composer -- via Rolling Stone. Founding member of Pere Ubu, he also played with DNA, and contributed to the groundbeaking "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts."








Elisabeth Maxwell

Holocaust scholar -- via the Jerusalem Post.


Gail Levin

Filmmaker -- via pbs.org.

Jack Clement aka Cowboy Jack

Music producer, engineer, songwriter, and arranger -- via the New York Times. He wrote "Ballad of a Teenage Queen"!





Regina Resnick

Opera star who triumphed both as a soprano and as a mezzo -- via the New York Times.





Barbara Mertz aka Barbara Michaels aka Elizabeth Peters

Writer -- via the Washington Post.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Margaret Pellegrini

Actress -- via the New York Times. One of three remaining actors who played Munchkins in the 1939 classic film "The Wizard of Oz."



Lloyd Moss

Classical-music radio host and children's author -- via the New York Times. The silver-tongued announcer kept me entranced for years during his shifts on WQXR in New York. He was authoritative but friendly, and his syndicated "First Hearing" led me to a lot of recordings I might have missed, and gave us listeners many insights as to HOW to listen to music.

Lew Cady aka Lewis Carter Cady

Creative marketing director, publisher and writer of one of the supreme comic creations, "The Little Kingdom Come," devout baseball fan and beer devotee -- via the Denver Post.

One of the funniest and most memorable characters in Denver's history, I knew Lew for decades, only because a) I grew up here, and had friends in Central City (where we could get bar service while still in high school), where he founded and published the Central City newspaper "The Little Kingdom Come," "published whenever we damn well please," from 1970 to just recently. Long before The Onion, Lew's scurrilous rag neatly skewered all the feuds and foibles endemic to every small mountain town, focusing specifically on "old," pre-gambling Central City. I treasure the few paper copies of the "Kingdom Come" I have -- they are still hilarious. Lew could deflate pomposity and capture the essence of a bar regular with equal pithiness, teaching me much about the funny. And b) he loved baseball as much as I do! He enjoyed it wherever it was played, but his loyalty was all for the Denver teams -- first the Bears, then the Zephyrs, and finally, for better or worse, with the Rockies.


Ruth Asawa

Sculptor -- via the L.A. Times.



Leon Ferrari

Artist -- via the New York Times. His provocative pieces were condemned, besides others, by the current Pope.



Dixie Evans aka Mary Lee Evans

Ecdysiast and founder of the Burlesque Hal of Fame -- via the New York Times.



John Palmer

Journalist -- via CNN.


Suzanne Krull

Actress, stand-up comic, screenwriter, and playwright -- via tvfishbowl.com.

Gail Kobe aka Gabriella Kieliszewski

Actress and producer in film and TV -- via Deadline.






Leighton Gage

Writer -- via the New York Times.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Eydie Gorme aka Edith Gormezano

Pop singer -- via the New York Times. She and her husband and co-warbler Steve Lawrence were the epitome of cheesy Vegasness to our ungrateful, callow generation. However, she was a superb stylist, technically flawless and able to sell a song, to really connect emotionally with her audience -- a talent that is pretty rare. If both their performing talents were mocked at the time as cliches, it's only because they came at the very end of the singer-interpreter boom that dominated pop music until rock 'n' roll came along -- 1942-1963. She was a Spanish-language diva; and she was hip to herself -- she and Steve did a killer cover of "Black Hole Sun," which you can listen to below.







Berthold Beitz

Industrialist who saved many during the Holocaust -- via the New York Times.

Kerry Strayer

Saxophonist, composer, and bandleader -- via the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.



Guillermo Alvarez Guedes

Comedian and radio host -- via the Huffington Post.



John Graves

Writer -- via the New York Times.

Graciana Silva aka La Negra Graciana

Singer and harpist -- via unomasuno.com.mx.