deaths
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Bass guitarist Herbie Flowers, who played with David Bowie, Elton John, Lou Reed and other music legends in a decades-long career, has died at 86.
The musician’s family confirmed his death on Facebook Saturday (Sept. 7).
“While we knew and loved him as Uncle Herbie, his musical contributions have likely touched your lives as well,” the husband of Flowers’ niece wrote. “He played bass on many of the songs from the golden age of rock,” the post reads.
A cause of death was not provided.
Flowers was a founding member of the pop group Blue Mink, who later joined the rock band T Rex. He won acclaim for his work with many of the biggest names in U.K. music in the 1970s, giving Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side,” from the 1972 Transformer album, its recognizable twinned bassline.
He also played bass for Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” Bryan Ferry’s “The Bride Stripped Bare,” and Paul McCartney’s “Give My Regards to Broad Street,” and featured in two of John’s early ’70s albums, among many others.
In a tribute, Bowie’s estate wrote on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), “his work with Bowie and associates over the years is too long to list here.”
“Aside from his incredible musicianship over many decades, he was a beautiful soul and a very funny man. He will be sorely missed,” it said. “Our thoughts are with his family and friends.”
Tim Burgess, lead singer for The Charlatans singer, wrote X that Flowers “made the greats sound greater.”
Flowers also founded the instrumental rock band Sky in the late 1970s, releasing seven albums.
Screamin’ Scott Simon, who spent 52 years as the pianist of the energetic rock ’n’ roll and doo-wop group Sha Na Na, died Thursday in Ojai after a long battle with sinus cancer, his daughter Nina Simon announced. He was 75.
A member of Sha Na Na from 1970 until they quit touring in 2022, Simon sometimes played the piano with his feet as he belted out such hits as Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and Danny & the Juniors’ “At the Hop.”
Simon and Sha Na Na performed in the 1978 film adaptation of Grease as “Johnny Casino and the Gamblers,” playing six doo-wop numbers in the high school dance scenes.
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Meanwhile, Simon partnered with Louis St. Louis to write “Sandy,” sung by John Travolta. The film’s soundtrack went on to become one of the top albums of all time, with sales of more than 30 million copies.
With the 1977 premiere of The Sha Na Na Show, Simon moved to Los Angeles and appeared on all 97 episodes of the 30-minute syndicated variety program over four seasons. The band welcomed such guest stars as Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, James Brown and the Ramones.
And on tour, Sha Na Na performed with acts including John Lennon & Yoko Ono, Steve Martin, Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel.
Born on Dec. 9, 1948, in Kansas City, Missouri, Simon was a multisport athlete and active in United Synagogue Youth, a national community of Conservative Jewish teenagers. He played in jug bands, founded a jazz quartet, tried his hand at composing and did song parodies, like turning Van Morrison’s “Gloria” into “Toriah.”
He moved to New York City to attend Columbia University — where a classmate nicknamed him “Screamin’ Scott” — in 1966 and fronted a blues band called The Royal Pythons.
In 1970, he answered an ad in the Columbia newspaper about an opening for a piano player and guitarist in a campus doo-wop group. Sha Na Na had immediately preceded Jimi Hendrix onstage at Woodstock in 1969 yet was still relatively unknown. After Simon graduated, he came aboard as its keyboardist and eventual managing partner.
While Sha Na Na primarily played classic ’50s and ’60s songs, Simon composed multiple songs and solo albums performed by the band and by himself on records and on TV.
In addition to his daughter, survivors include his wife, Deborah; another daughter, Morgan; stepson Nick; and granddaughters Rocket and Naomi.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
James Darren, the former teen idol and pop singer who played the dreamy surfer Moondoggie in three Gidget movies before starring on television on The Time Tunnel and T.J. Hooker, died Monday. He was 88.
Darren died in his sleep at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his son Jim Moret, a correspondent for Inside Edition, told The Hollywood Reporter. He had entered the hospital for an aortic valve replacement but was deemed too weak to have the surgery; he went home but had to return.
“I always thought he would pull through,” Moret said, “because he was so cool. He was always cool.”
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Early in his career, the dark-haired Darren received excellent notices for starring in Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960) — portraying the son of a hoodlum defended by Humphrey Bogart’s character in 1949’s Knock on Any Door — and for playing the Greek soldier Spyros Pappadimos in The Guns of Navarone (1961).
Even though he could not surf, the Philadelphia native got the role of Moondoggie (real name: Jerry Matthews) opposite three actresses as the precocious Malibu teen: Sandra Dee in Gidget (1959), Deborah Walley in Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961) and Cindy Carol in Gidget Goes to Rome (1963).
Darren revived his singing career in the late ’90s when he appeared on several episodes of the syndicated series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as the holographic lounge singer Vic Fontaine, a role he called “one of the most enjoyable” he ever played.
Several of his Frank Sinatra-styled performances were recorded for the 1999 album This One’s From the Heart.
After many years out of the limelight, Darren made an impression as the husband of a bar owner in Harry Dean Stanton‘s final film, Lucky (2017).
James William Ercolani was born on June 8, 1936. Growing up on South 10th Street in South Philadelphia, he was inspired by another Philly native, Eddie Fisher, to become a singer and actor, and he commuted to New York to study acting with Stella Adler.
While in the city, the owner of a photography shop connected him to Columbia Pictures talent scout Joyce Selznick (David O. Selznick’s niece), and he went on to sign a contract with the studio.
Darren made his film debut as a high school senior and gang member opposite Robert Blake in the crime drama Rumble on the Docks (1956), then followed with roles in Operation Mad Ball, The Brothers Rico and The Tijuana Story in 1957 and Gunman’s Walk in ’58.
The Gidget movies made him extremely popular with young ladies.
“The defining moment was when I was at a studio in San Francisco and word got out that I was there,” he recalled in a 2015 interview with Los Angeles magazine. “Thousands of girls were screaming out front. When I had to leave the building, they tackled me to the ground and pulled pieces of my hair out. The police had to rescue me and took me to the roof until things settled down.”
To land the Gidget gig, Darren had to convince the producers that he could carry a tune. “They were going to use somebody else’s voice, but I told them I could sing,” he said. “We went into one of the soundstages with a piano player and I sang the song and they said, ‘He can do it.’ Then they put me on their label, Colpix.”
Darren also was heard performing in All the Young Men (1960), Diamond Head (1962), Under the Yum Yum Tree (1963) and For Those Who Think Young (1964).
He sang “Almost in Your Arms” at the 1959 Academy Awards and “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World” on the 1964 Oscar telecast; performed as Yogi Bear in a 1964 animated film; and did a number on a 1965 episode of The Flintstones.
He also played the best friend opposite Sal Mineo in The Gene Krupa Story (1959), starred as a car mechanic in The Lively Set (1964) and ventured to Italy to topline Venus in Furs (1969) with Barbara McNair.
Darren was married to childhood sweetheart Gloria Terlitsky from 1955 until their 1958 divorce and to Evy Norlund, a former Miss Denmark, from 1960 until his death. He lived for decades in a home on Kimridge Road in Beverly Ridge Estates that had been owned by Audrey Hepburn.
In addition to his wife and Moret, survivors include his other sons, Christian and Anthony; grandchildren Amanda, Carly, Matthew, Natalie and Nicholas; and goddaughter A.J. Lambert, daughter of Nancy Sinatra.
Over the years, Darren encountered many fans of his music, some of them unexpected.
“I was in a pizza shop one day with a friend of mine. I heard this motorcycle pull up, and in walked Bruce Springsteen in his little motorcycle cap, like Brando wore in The Wild One — I guess he left his helmet outside,” he recalled in his chat with Weaver. “I said, ‘Oh, I gotta go say hi to him.’
“I walked up to him and said, ‘Hi, I don’t want to interrupt you, but my name is James Darren. I just want to tell you I’m a big fan. I love all your stuff.’ And he said, ‘James Darren? I bought “Goodbye Cruel World” in Freehold, New Jersey.’ Isn’t that sweet?”
–Duane Byrge contributed to this report
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Jack Russell, the former frontman of 1980s and ’90s glam rockers Great White, has died at age 63.
The news comes from the Instagram page for Jack Russell’s Great White, which is the band name the frontman toured under after the group disbanded in 2001.
“With tremendous sadness, we announce the loss of our beloved Jack Patrick Russell — father, husband, cousin, uncle, and friend,” the statement begins, adding that the singer “passed peacefully” surrounded by his wife Heather Ann, son Matthew Hucko and other family and friends. “Jack is loved and remembered for his sense of humor, exceptional zest for life, and unshakeable contribution to rock and roll where his legacy will forever live and thrive.”
The family is asking for privacy and shared that details of a public memorial would be announced at a later date.
On the Instagram page for Great White, Russell’s original bandmates shared their “deepest condolences to the family of Jack Russell. We hope they take comfort in knowing Jack’s incredible voice will live on forever.” The ended the statement: “Rest In Peace, to one of rock’s biggest champions.”
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Great White landed six songs on the Billboard Hot 100 in the late ’80s and early ’90s, including the top five smash “Once Bitten Twice Shy,” which peaked at No. 5 in 1989 and whose music video was in heavy rotation on MTV. The song’s album, 1989’s …Twice Shy, was a top 10 hit on the Billboard 200 chart, peaking at No. 9.
Following the group’s end in 2001, the lead singer hit the road as Jack Russell’s Great White — most infamously headlining Rhode Island’s The Station nightclub in 2003, when pyrotechnics started a fire that killed 100 people, including bandmate Ty Longley, and injuring 230. Russell’s tour manager, Daniel Biechele, pleaded guilty to 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter in 2006 and served two years in prison of a 15-year sentence. The owners of The Station, Jeffrey and Michael Derderian, pleaded no contest, with Michael serving almost three years in prison and Jeffrey being sentenced to community service. The band also reached settlements with victims in several lawsuits.
Last month, Russell’s Instagram page had announced his retirement from touring after diagnoses of Lewy Body Dementia and Multiple System Atrophy. “Words cannot express my gratitude for the many years of memories, love, and support,” the retirement announcement read. “Thank you for letting me live my dreams.”
Find the family and band statements below.
John Mayall, the British blues musician whose influential band the Bluesbreakers was a training ground for Eric Clapton, Mick Fleetwood and many other superstars, has died. He was 90.
A statement on Mayall’s Instagram page announced his death Tuesday (July 23), saying the musician died Monday at his home in California. “Health issues that forced John to end his epic touring career have finally led to peace for one of this world’s greatest road warriors,” the post said.
He is credited with helping develop the English take on urban, Chicago-style rhythm and blues that played an important role in the blues revival of the late 1960s. At various times, the Bluesbreakers included Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce, later of Cream; Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac; Mick Taylor, who played five years with the Rolling Stones; Harvey Mandel and Larry Taylor of Canned Heat; and Jon Mark and John Almond, who went on to form the Mark-Almond Band.
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Mayall protested in interviews that he was not a talent scout, but played for the love of the music he had first heard on his father’s 78-rpm records.
“I’m a band leader and I know what I want to play in my band — who can be good friends of mine,” Mayall said in an interview with the Southern Vermont Review. “It’s definitely a family. It’s a small kind of thing really.”
A small but enduring thing. Though Mayall never approached the fame of some of his illustrious alumni, he was still performing in his late 80s, pounding out his version of Chicago blues. The lack of recognition rankled a bit, and he wasn’t shy about saying so.
“I’ve never had a hit record, I never won a Grammy Award, and Rolling Stone has never done a piece about me,” he said in an interview with the Santa Barbara Independent in 2013. “I’m still an underground performer.”
Known for his blues harmonica and keyboard playing, Mayall had a Grammy nomination, for “Wake Up Call” which featured guest artists Buddy Guy, Mavis Staples, Mick Taylor and Albert Collins. He received a second nomination in 2022 for his album The Sun Is Shining Down. He also won official recognition in Britain with the award of an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in 2005.
He was selected for the 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame class and his 1966 album Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton is considered one of the best British blues albums.
Mayall once was asked if he kept playing to meet a demand, or simply to show he could still do it.
“Well, the demand is there, fortunately. But it’s really for neither of those two things, it’s just for the love of the music,” he said in an interview with Hawaii Public Radio. “I just get together with these guys and we have a workout.”
Mayall was born on Nov. 29, 1933 in Macclesfield, near Manchester in central England.
Sounding a note of the hard-luck bluesman, Mayall once said, “The only reason I was born in Macclesfield was because my father was a drinker, and that’s where his favorite pub was.”
His father also played guitar and banjo, and his records of boogie-woogie piano captivated his teenage son.
Mayall said he learned to play the piano one hand at a time — a year on the left hand, a year on the right, “so I wouldn’t get all tangled up.”
The piano was his main instrument, though he also performed on guitar and harmonica, as well as singing in a distinctive, strained-sounding voice. Aided only by drummer Keef Hartley, Mayall played all the other instruments for his 1967 album Blues Alone.
Mayall was often called the “father of British blues,” but when he moved to London in 1962 his aim was to soak up the nascent blues scene led by Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Eric Burdon were among others drawn to the sound.
The Bluesbreakers drew on a fluid community of musicians who drifted in and out of various bands. Mayall’s biggest catch was Clapton, who had quit the Yardbirds and joined he Bluesbreakers in 1965 because he was unhappy with the Yardbirds’ commercial direction.
Mayall and Clapton shared a passion for Chicago blues, and the guitarist later remembered that Mayall had “the most incredible collection of records I had ever seen.”
Mayall tolerated Clapton’s waywardness: He disappeared a few months after joining the band, then reappeared later the same year, sidelining the newly arrived Peter Green, then left for good in 1966 with Bruce to form Cream, which rocketed to commercial success, leaving Mayall far behind.
Clapton, interviewed for a BBC documentary on Mayall in 2003, confessed that “to a certain extent I have used his hospitality, used his band and his reputation to launch my own career,”
“I think he is a great musician. I just admire and respect his steadfastness,” Clapton added.
Mayall encouraged Clapton to sing and urged Green to develop his song-writing abilities.
Mick Taylor, who succeeded Green as a Bluesbreaker in the late 1960s, valued the wide latitude which Mayall allowed his soloists.
“You’d have complete freedom to do whatever you wanted,” Taylor said in a 1979 interview with writer Jas Obrecht. “You could make as many mistakes as you wanted, too.”
Mayall’s 1968 album Blues From Laurel Canyon signaled a permanent move to the United States and a change in direction. He disbanded the Bluesbreakers and worked with two guitars and drums.
The following year he released The Turning Point, arguably his most successful release, with an atypical four-man acoustic lineup including Mark and Almond. “Room to Move,” a song from that album, was a frequent audience favorite in Mayall’s later career.
The 1970s found Mayall at low ebb personally, but still touring and doing more than 100 shows a year.
“Throughout the ’70s, I performed most of my shows drunk,” Mayall said in an interview with Dan Ouellette for Down Beat magazine in 1990. One consequence was an attempt to jump from a balcony into a swimming pool that missed — shattering one of Mayall’s heels and leaving him with a limp.
“That was one incident that got me to stop drinking,” Mayall said.
In 1982, he reformed the Bluesbreakers, recruiting Taylor and McVie, but after two years the personnel changed again. In 2008, Mayall announced that he was permanently retiring the Bluesbreaker name, and in 2013 he was leading the John Mayall Band.
Mayall and his second wife, Maggie, divorced in 2011 after 30 years of marriage. They had two sons.
Abdul Kareem “Duke” Fakir, the last of the original Four Tops and a stalwart of Motown’s golden age, has died at age 88.
Fakir’s family announced the singer’s death on Monday afternoon (July 22), noting that “our hearts are heavy as we mourn the loss of a trailblazer, icon and music legend who, through his 70-year music career, touched the lives of so many.”
Fakir, who co-founded The Four Tops in 1953, had been in poor health, most recently fighting bladder cancer, and had retired from touring late last year. He was, according to the family, “surrounded by his loved ones” at his home in the Detroit area. An associate told Billboard that on Sunday he was “happy, talking and interacting, and when they turned to do something and turned back around, he had slipped away.”
With his glasses and angular frame, Fakir was arguably the most recognizable of The Tops and maintained his leadership in the group following the deaths of Levi Stubbs in 2008, Renaldo “Obie” Benson in 2005 and Lawrence Payton in 1997 (his son Lawrence Payton Jr. is part of the current lineup).
“I am probably as surprised as you are at the longevity,” Fakir said during 2022 while promoting his memoir I’ll Be There: My Life With The Four Tops. “It’s unbelievable. I never would’ve thought that while I was in my 80s I’d even be thinking about doing this, let alone still doing it. I feel nothing but blessed, man. Just blessed.”
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Fakir was born in Detroit on Dec. 26, 1935; his father was a factory worker who’d come over from what is now Bangladesh. He played football, basketball and ran track in high school, meeting Stubbs through neighborhood football games; the two began singing after separately attending a variety show, eventually recruiting Payton and Benson to form the group, first called The Aims but later changed to avoid confusion with the Ames Brothers.
The Four Tops recorded without success for several labels — including Chess, Red Top, Riverside and Columbia — and supported Billy Eckstine before signing with Motown in 1963. The group started out recording standards for the label’s Workshop Jazz Records imprint, but when the songwriting/production team of Holland-Dozier Holland gave The Tops “Baby I Need Your Loving” in mid-1964, it hit No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100, which opened the floodgates for a string of hits that included “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch),” “Reach Out I’ll Be There,” “Standing in the Shadows of Love” and “It’s the Same Old Song.”
“We were so fortunate in a lot of things we did,” explained Fakir, who was engaged to The Supremes’ Mary Wilson during the mid-’60s but called it off due to their individual career demands. “The love we shared between the four of us was kind of rare for four really kind of street guys from the north of Detroit, to come together with that kind of love. But music does a lot of things to you. It created a lot of love that we had, especially between ourselves.
“I didn’t know how much I would love the audience and the people. Just being on stage changed my whole life and my perspective. I look at the world a whole different way than I did when I was a young guy. It’s a beautiful world, and it just needs a little push towards love and togetherness.”
The Tops had several stints with Motown, and away from that company it also had hits with “Ain’t No Woman (Like the One I’ve Got),” “Are You Man Enough” and “When She Was My Girl.” The Tops were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998 and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1999. Fakir accepted a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award on behalf of the band in 2009. “Reach Out I’ll Be There” was added to the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry in 2022.
“They’re just a tremendous group, one of the best,” Otis Williams of friendly “rivals” The Temptations said when the groups performed together a few years ago. “You look how long the original four stayed together like they did, and it’s so rare and special. I always marveled at it.” Like Fakir, Williams is the only remaining founding member of The Temptations, a role he said the two would speak about.
“These groups are our lives, you know?” Williams said. “I know Duke will be a Four Top until he can’t do it anymore. We both feel a responsibility to keep our [groups] going and keep the music out there for people to hear.”
In addition to the memoir, Fakir was also working on a stage musical based on The Four Tops’ story.
Fakir is survived by his wife, Piper; daughter Farrah Fakir Cook; sons Nazim Bashir Fakir, Abdul Kareem Fakir Jr., Myke Fakir, Anthony Fakir and Malik Robinson; 13 grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren. Funeral arrangements for Fakir are currently pending.
Chris King, the rapper who was close friends with Trippie Redd and Justin Bieber and started the label Snotty Nose Records, was fatally shot in Nashville early Saturday morning. He was 32 years old.
According to Nashville homicide detectives, King (real name: Christopher Cheeks) was with friends at 2:30 a.m. CT when three suspects attempted to rob the group. Both King and his 29-year-old friend were struck by gunfire. After running in separate directions, the 29-year-old victim was located and treated, while King was pronounced dead at Vanderbilt hospital.
On social media, there was an outpouring of love for the late rapper, who was born in Fontana, Calif. King briefly lived with Bieber, who took to his Instagram Story on Saturday to write, “Love you bro,” with a broken-heart emoji over a photo of the pair hugging. “This one hurts. Please keep his family in your prayers. See you in paradise, brother.”
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On Saturday, Redd — described as King’s best friend — posted a carousel of photos of the late rapper along with the caption “I am so hurt rn I can’t even think I love you bro come back!!!!!” He posted a longer tribute to Instagram on Sunday, writing, “Original 1400 I love you until we meet again twin! I would not be where I am today without @whoischrisking.” In the caption, Redd credited King with introducing him to 10K Projects CEO Elliot Grainge as well as Create Music Group founding partner Milo Stokes. “He had the best energy always. He had so many friends and it shows. I love you guys for supporting one of my best friends ever my brother.”
Machine Gun Kelly responded in Redd’s comments, writing, “chris was rare.”
Keke Palmer also shared a tribute to King on Instagram, posting a photo of the two talking on Facetime. “Chris King! I wish I had more photos but it’s actually perfect because this is exactly how it began,” she wrote. “iChat sessions with you and Marcel back in the 2Much days. Wow. I can’t believe I’m saying rest in peace. This is terrible. I really don’t know what to say. I just want to share that I loved you and I remember all the city walk, grove moments. That was my high school. When we were babies before everyone knew you was a real rockstar. We were kids! And you always knew how to make everyone laugh. Your kindness was present no matter what room you were in, everybody was and wanted to be your friend. We will miss you until we meet again, rest heavenly brother.”
On April 8, King released his final music, a song called “Seeing Double Seeing Double.” The rapper was in Tennessee to perform Friday night at the Nashville Cannafest.
See some of the tributes to King below:
Michael Cuscuna, the three-time Grammy winner, Mosaic Records co-founder, historian and archivist who produced hundreds of jazz reissues and studio sessions during his career, has died. He was 75.
Cuscuna died Saturday of cancer at his home in Stamford, Connecticut, Grammy-winning recording artist Billy Vera, a longtime friend, announced.
Cuscuna produced the 1970 album Buddy & the Juniors, featuring Buddy Guy, Junior Wells and Junior Mance, for Vanguard Records, and 1972’s Give It Up, Bonnie Raitt’s lone gold album during her time at Warner Bros.
He produced reissues and studio sessions for Impulse, Atlantic, Arista, Muse, Elektra, Freedom, Novus and virtually the entire Blue Note catalog.
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“Plainly stated, Blue Note Records would not exist as it does today without the passion & dedication of Michael Cuscuna,” execs from the label wrote on Instagram.
Readers of Blues & Rhythm magazine know his work in the blues field, which included box sets on T-Bone Walker, Amos Milburn, Charles Brown and the Otis Spann/Lightnin’ Hopkins Candid sessions.
Nominated nine times in all, Cuscuna received his Grammys in 1993, 1999 and 2002, respectively, for producing box sets of music from Nat King Cole, Miles Davis and Billie Holiday.
Born on Sept. 20, 1948, in Stamford, Connecticut, Cuscuna played drums, saxophone and flute while working in a local record shop. He was drawn to R&B before jazz became his greatest love.
As a radio DJ, his theme song was the novelty tune “Rubber Biscuit” by The Chips, later covered by the Blues Brothers. When asked what was his favorite kind of music, he always answered, “Atlantic singles and Blue Note albums.”
He culled the Blue Note vaults for unissued treasures by such label masters as Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Horace Silver, Art Blakey and Jimmy Smith as well as lesser-known performers including Quebec, Hank Mobley and Tina Brooks.
Also for Blue Note, he uncovered gems by Lester Young, Sonny Criss and Art Pepper, and his work on Michael Ruppli label discographies from company files was invaluable.
In later years, he gained ownership of Blue Note’s vast photographic library, licensing shots to books and films.
Without Mosaic — which he founded in 1982 with Charlie Lourie — the complete Roulette recordings of Count Basie, the complete Capitol Duke Ellington sessions and countless other gems might still be hidden away or lost forever, Vera noted.
Survivors include his wife, Lisa, children Max and Lauren and grandchildren Nicolas and Penelope.
“Michael and I were close friends for nearly 60 years,” Vera, who had a No. 1 song with “At This Moment” in 1987, said in a statement. “When back east, I stayed at his home, annoying Lisa, who put up with our often-sarcastic sense of humor. Our many lunches with [producer-discographer] Bob Porter were legendary for our obscurest dives into musical esoterica. The three of us adamantly refused to accept any dividing line between blues and jazz.
“In 1989, Blue Note chief Bruce Lundvall asked us to produce Lou Rawls. We gathered legends like Richard Tee, Cornell Dupree, Hank Crawford, David Newman, Benny Golson, Stanley Turrentine, George Benson, Ray Charles and Lionel Hampton, reviving Lou’s career with the No. 1 jazz album At Last, followed by two more that landed in the top five. It was the greatest fun we ever had.”
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Jean-Paul Vignon, the romantic French vocalist and actor who impressed audiences on both sides of the Atlantic during an eight-decade career, died March 22 of liver cancer in Beverly Hills, his family announced. He was 89.
Performing a repertoire of contemporary pop and American standards, Vignon debuted in the U.S. in 1963 at the famed New York supper club The Blue Angel, where he opened for stand-up comic Woody Allen.
Ed Sullivan would soon showcase him on his Sunday night CBS variety show in eight appearances — including one in which he sang a duet with young Liza Minnelli — and he became a regular guest on Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin’s programs.
Signed to Columbia Records, Vignon released his first U.S. album, Because I Love You, in 1964. Three years later, he had a supporting role opposite William Holden and Cliff Robertson in the World War II film The Devil’s Brigade.
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In a 1994 profile in the Los Angeles Times, reporter Robert Koehler noted, “Vignon fulfilled the American image of the romantic, singing Frenchman. Ironically, rather than compare his voice to such renowned Gallic crooners as Maurice Chevalier and Gilbert Bécaud, Vignon says that he has a Bobby Darin kind of voice, able to sing fast and passionate or gentle and slow.”
He continued to play some of the top rooms in New York, Miami, Los Angeles and other major cities into the early 1970s, and in ’74 he recorded a single, “You,” with Farrah Fawcett, then a relatively unknown young actress and model.
Changing audience tastes stalled his career, but he did host a Canadian TV show produced by Dick Clark called The Sensuous Man, which ended each week with him reclining in a bathtub. And for a Playgirl centerfold in 1973, he sported a sweater once worn in a famous photo shoot by Marilyn Monroe and little else.
Born on Jan. 30, 1935, in the port city of Dire-Daou in the colonial territory of French Somaliland (later known as Djibouti), Vignon was schooled in Avignon, France. He briefly studied medicine in Marseille and law at the Sorbonne in Paris but decided to pursue music full time.
He was in his early 20s when, on the recommendation of Belgian singer-actor Jacques Brel, he secured a prestigious cabaret job in Paris that would launch his career.
The baritone debuted in front of the cameras as the star of the 1956 feature Les Promesses Dangereuses, then followed with a performance opposite Francoise Arnoul in the romantic drama Asphalte (1959).
Meanwhile, he had signed as a vocalist with France’s Disques Vogue, which aimed to develop him as an artist along the lines of such balladeers as Charles Trenet (his idol), Yves Montand and Charles Aznavour. His first album was 1957’s autobiographical Djibouti.
His career in France began to lag after he served 17 months of compulsory military service, but after opening for Edith Piaf and performing on board the French liner Liberté before such ocean-going celebrities as Ernie Kovacs, Edie Adams and Carol Burnett, he decided to try his luck in the States.
As he wrote in his 2018 memoir, From Ethiopia to Utopia, “My adventurous spirit was telling me, ‘Marco Polo did not hesitate to go to China, Henry Morton Stanley did not hesitate to presume exploring Central Africa and find Dr. Livingston, Christopher Columbus did not hesitate to sail west to discover America … so it is your turn to discover the United States.’”
After years of career ebbs and flows, he returned to the L.A. cabaret scene in 1993, encouraged by such pop vocalists as Harry Connick Jr., Michael Feinstein and Tony Bennett and the smash success of “Unforgettable,” which paired the late Nat King Cole and his daughter Natalie. He would remain active into his 80s with appearances at Feinstein’s at Vitello’s and the Catalina Jazz Club.
Along the way, he would also appear on such shows as The Rockford Files, Hotel, Falcon Crest, L.A. Law, Columbo, Days of Our Lives and Gilmore Girls; voice one of the Merry Men in Shrek (2001); and narrate the romantic comedy 500 Days of Summer (2009).
Meanwhile, his company, Côte d’Azur Productions, provided French audiences with translations and overdubs of Scarface and other American films.
Survivors include his longtime partner, Suzie Summers; daughters Marguerite Vignon Gaul (from his marriage to late American actress Brigid Bazlen) and Lucy Brank; and granddaughters Leah and Hannah.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Eric Carmen, the hitmaker behind ’70s and ’80s smashes like “All By Myself” and “Hungry Eyes,” has died at age 74, his wife Amy confirms.
“It is with tremendous sadness that we share the heartbreaking news of the passing of Eric Carmen,” a message posted to his website, Facebook and X account reads. “It brought him great joy to know, that for decades, his music touched so many and will be his lasting legacy. ‘Love Is All That Matters…Faithful and Forever,’” the message concludes, signed by Amy Carmen, his wife of eight years.
Over his decades-long career — starting in earnest during his college years at John Carroll University in his home state of Ohio, when he joined a band called Cyrus Erie — Carmen scored three top five hits on the Billboard Hot 100: the No. 2-peaking “All By Myself” in 1976, followed by the Dirty Dancing soundtrack standout “Hungry Eyes,” which peaked at No. 4 in 1988, and “Make Me Lose Control,” a No. 3 hit, also in 1988. His highest-charting album was his self-titled solo debut, which peaked at No. 21 in 1976.
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In addition to scoring a hit on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, Carmen also co-wrote “Almost Paradise… Love Theme from Footloose” (performed by Mike Reno and Ann Wilson) for the Footloose soundtrack, earning him his lone Grammy nomination for best album of original score written for a motion picture or a television special.
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Before his blockbuster solo career, he recorded four albums with The Raspberries from 1972 to 1974. They scored a No. 5 hit from their debut album called “Go All the Way” in 1972 and a top 20 hit with the ironically titled “Overnight Sensation (Hit Record),” which peaked at No. 18 in 1974.
Many of Carmen’s songs have endured thanks to new placements in pop culture, including Celine Dion’s Hot 100 No. 4-peaking cover of “All By Myself” in 1997; “Go All the Way” being featured on the Guardians of Galaxy: Awesome Mix Vol. 1 soundtrack in 2014; and his co-written “Almost Paradise” serving as the theme song to The Bachelor spin-off Bachelor in Paradise in 2014.