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Jerry Moss once spent a day in Athens, Greece, screaming at the heads of the world’s top electronics companies during a Billboard music-industry convention. It was 1981. Sony’s Norio Ohga and Philips’ Jan Timmer were trying to persuade record executives to switch from their beloved LP to this new, high-tech “compact disc,” and Moss, co-founder of storied indie A&M Records, which would break Janet Jackson, Sting, Soundgarden and Blues Traveler, led the opposition.
Moss, who died Thursday at 88, believed CDs “would kill the industry because the perfect digital master would invite and facilitate piracy,” according to John Nathan‘s 1999 book, Sony.
As I was researching this subject for my own book, Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age, I had to verify this claim. Nathan described a mob of outraged record execs chanting, like soccer hooligans, a “slogan that sounded like a Madison Avenue nightmare”: “The truth is in the grooves!”
This was the generous and magnanimous sales expert who was endlessly patient with his artists, willing to lose money on an album to advance a long-term career, whom Sting would describe as an “elder brother, a wise head, a man’s man and a mensch”?
I was sure Moss would be too embarrassed to rehash this history, because, eventually, the CD helped him and his partner, trumpeter Herb Alpert, become super rich, selling A&M to PolyGram for $500 million in 1989. (That’s $1.23 billion in today’s dollars.) But the exec who co-founded A&M with Alpert in a garage in 1962, after selling the master for Alpert’s Tijuana Brass instrumental “Tell It to the Birds” for $750, quickly agreed to a phone interview – and a wonkier follow-up later.
“I made a bit of a small statement at the meeting,” understated Moss, who at the time of our interview was running his post-A&M label, Almo Sounds, which had signed Gillian Welch as well as Garbage and Imogen Heap. “I liked the hardware and the whole ease of the CD, and I generally applauded the idea that Sony and Philips were getting together on this one piece of machinery.
“But,” he added, “I thought they could have done something to stop piracy.”
On Second Thought…
What finally turned Moss around was the economics of the CD. The price of vinyl records was stuck at $8.98 — and after Tom Petty threatened to affix a huge “$8.98!” sticker on his 1981 album, Hard Promises, his own label, MCA, and the rest of the industry were blocked from raising prices. The CD allowed A&M to “charge a multiple for this thing,” Moss said. Also, retail stores were charging labels for advertising — a “mighty blow,” Moss called it. After disco crashed in 1979, LP sales plunged. “Retailing and selling became very pinched,” he added.
“The retailers wanted more and artists and producers wanted more for what they were doing. The record companies were getting squeezed further and further,” Moss went on. “And here comes the CD.”
The shiny, futuristic format was in high demand, and retailers were willing to buy it from labels for $10 wholesale, far higher than the LP, then sell it to customers for $16.
“So A&M, after just a tiny bit of study, decided this was going to be our future,” Moss said.
Like the bigger labels, A&M had to find plants to manufacture the CD, quickly making a deal with a German company. And the CD, to which Moss had been so screamingly opposed in 1981, made A&M profitable beyond anything Alpert and Moss had once imagined: “The company was a different company from 1979 to 1989, certainly.”
A Bittersweet Sale
Alongside Alpert and the late Gil Friesen, then the day-to-day operations exec who referred to himself as the ampersand in A&M, Moss decided they had no choice but to sell the company they loved. Music stars in the late ’80s and early ’90s were demanding multimillion-dollar advances, and, as an indie, A&M couldn’t compete with bigger labels for the up-front guarantees. The trio stayed on for a couple of years after the sale, but PolyGram had a mandatory retirement age of 61. In 1991, Moss found himself with a new boss, Alain Levy, who became PolyGram’s worldwide president and CEO, and, Moss recalled, “wasn’t laughing at my jokes.”
(In 1998, PolyGram was sold to Seagram, which merged it with Universal Music Group, today the world’s biggest label.)
“I don’t regret selling, because I felt we had nothing but to do that. There was no alternative. We would have had to have gotten a lot smaller, and gotten our investment in different, other ways,” Moss told me. “I can’t say I’m sorry I sold A&M. I will say I’m sorry I had to leave.”
Tributes are flowing for Michael Parkinson, the legendary British chat show host who died Wednesday (Aug. 16) at the age of 88.
Parky, as he was affectionately known in his homeland, championed countless musicians across his career on TV, during which time his talk show was a “must-see” staple on British TV.
The broadcaster’s seemingly endless conveyor belt of top celebrities ensured high ratings and, over time, included almost every big name in the music scene, from members of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, to Elton John, Tina Turner, David Bowie, George Michael and Robbie Williams.
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With his predilection for adult-leaning, often jazz-oriented performers, Parkinson’s program gave a platform for the likes of Jamie Cullum, Katie Melua and Michael Bublé, among many others.
Starting out as a print journalist, Parkinson became a producer at the commercial British TV channel Granada in the late 1960s. He became the archetypal chat show presenter via a weekly program for BBC1 which began in 1971 and ran on Saturday nights for 361 editions until 1982. His “Parkinson” show continued from 1998 until his retirement in December 2007, with a star-studded finale which included such guests as David Beckham, Michael Caine, David Attenborough, Judi Dench, Billy Connolly and Cullum.
Parkinson was saluted on numerous occasions for his work. In 1998, he became a Gold Badge recipient – an award that pays tribute to people judged to have made a special and lasting contribution to the U.K.’s entertainment industry.
In 2000, he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to broadcasting. And in 2005, Parkinson was honored with the Music Industry Trusts’ Award, otherwise known as the “person of the year,” presented annually to an individual who has made a distinctive and lasting contribution to the U.K. music industry. On the night, Parkinson was declared as “the musicians’ champion.”
In 2008, he was Knighted for services to broadcasting.
A proud Yorkshireman and lifelong cricket fan, the broadcaster passes a decade after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, which he batted with radiotherapy.
Many of those celebrities who appeared on Parkinson’s popular show have paid tribute to the broadcasting legend.
“Michael Parkinson was a TV legend who was one of the greats,” writes Elton John on Instagram. “I loved his company and his incredible knowledge of cricket and Barnsley Football Club. A real icon who brought out the very best in his guests. Condolences and love to Mary and his family.”
Parkinson “was irreplaceable,” recounts veteran actor Michael Caine, “he was charming, always wanted to have a good laugh. He brought the best of everyone he met. Always looked forward to be interviewed by him.”
Michael Parkinson was irreplaceable, he was charming, always wanted to have a good laugh. He brought the best of everyone he met.Always looked forward to be interviewed by him.— Michael Caine (@themichaelcaine) August 17, 2023
Adds retired England soccer great David Beckham: ‘I was so lucky to not just be interviewed by Michael but to be able to spend precious time talking about football and family our 2 passions plus the GoldenBalls moment.”
The NFSA marks the passing of the veteran British broadcaster Michael Parkinson. Parky interviewed a number of famous Australians, including @kylieminogue, as shown in this 2002 clip, in which he discusses her career and elicits some candid reflections. #MichaelParkinson pic.twitter.com/6mONJwnARs— NFSA National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (@NFSAonline) August 18, 2023
Writes actor Stephen Fry, “Having grown up watching him interview greats, my first appearance was impossibly thrilling for me. The genius of Parky was that unlike most people (and most of his guests, me included) he was always 100% himself. On camera and off.”
Gary Young, the original drummer of ’90s indie rockers Pavement, has died at age 70. “Gary Young passed on today,” Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus posted Thursday (Aug. 17) on X (formerly Twitter). “Gary’s pavement drums were ‘one take and hit record’…. Nailed it so well. rip.” Matador Records, which released Pavement’s beloved 1992 debut album […]
Jerry Moss, a music industry giant who co-founded A&M Records with Herb Alpert and rose from a Los Angeles garage to the heights of success with hits by Alpert, The Police, the Carpenters and hundreds of other performers, has died at age 88.
Moss, inducted with Alpert into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006, died Wednesday (Aug. 16) at his home in Bel Air, California, according to a statement released by his family.
“They truly don’t make them like him anymore and we will miss conversations with him about everything under the sun,” the statement reads in part, “the twinkle in his eyes as he approached every moment ready for the next adventure.”
For more than 25 years, Alpert and Moss presided over one of the industry’s most successful independent labels, releasing such blockbuster albums as Albert’s Whipped Cream & Other Delights, Carole King’s Tapestry and Peter Frampton’s Frampton Comes Alive! They were home to the Carpenters and Cat Stevens,Janet Jackson and Soundgarden,Joe Cocker and Suzanne Vega, the Go-Gos and Sheryl Crow.
Among the label’s singles: Alpert’s “A Taste of Honey,” the Captain and Tennille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together,” Frampton’s “Show Me the Way” and “Every Breath You Take” by The Police.
“Every once in a while a record would come through us and Herbie would look at me and say, ‘What did we do to deserve this, that this amazing thing is going to come out on our label?’” Moss told Artist House Music, an archive and resource center, in 2007.
His music connections also led to a lucrative horse racing business that he owned with his first wife, Ann Holbrook. In 1962, record manufacturer Nate Duroff lent Alpert and Moss $35,000 so they could print 350,000 copies of Alpert’s instrumental “The Lonely Bull,” the label’s first major hit. A decade later, Duroff convinced Moss to invest in horses.
The Mosses’ Giacomo, named for the son of A&M artist Sting, won the Kentucky Derby in 2005. Zenyatta, in honor of the Police album “Zenyatta Mondatta,” was runner-up for Horse of the Year in 2008 and 2009 and won the following year. A hit single by Sting gave Moss the name for another profitable horse, Set Them Free.
Moss’ survivors include his second wife, Tina Morse, and three children.
Born in New York City and an English major at Brooklyn College, Moss had wanted to work in show business since waiting tables in his 20s and noticing that the entertainment industry patrons seemed to be having so much fun. After a six-month Army stint, he found work as a promoter for Coed Records and eventually moved to Los Angeles, where he met and befriended Alpert, a trumpeter, songwriter and entrepreneur.
With an investment of $100 each, they formed Carnival Records and had a local hit with “Tell It to the Birds,” an Alpert ballad released under the name of his son, Dore Alpert. After learning that another company was called Carnival, Alpert and Moss used the initials of their last names and renamed their business A&M, working out an office in Alpert’s garage and designing the distinctive logo with the trumpet across the bottom.
“We had a desk, piano, piano stool, a couch, coffee table and two phone lines. And that for the two of us worked out very well, because we could go over the songs on the piano and make phone calls to the distributors,” Moss later told Billboard. “We also had an answering service at the time. I’d do all my own billing.”
For several years they specialized in “easy listening” acts such as Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Brazilian artist Sergio Mendes and the folk-rock trio the Sandpipers. After attending the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, rock’s first major festival, Moss began adding rock performers, including Cocker, Procol Harum and Free.
One of their biggest triumphs was Frampton Comes Alive! a live double album from 1976 that sold more than 6 million copies in its first year and transformed Frampton from mid-level performer to superstar.
“Peter was a huge live star in markets like Detroit and San Francisco, so we made a suggestion that he make a live record,” Moss told Rolling Stone in 2002. “What he was doing onstage wasn’t like the records — it was outrageously better. I remember being at the mix of Frampton Comes Alive! at Electric Lady studios, and I was so blown away I asked to make it a double album.”
A&M continued to expand their catalog through the 1970s and ’80s, taking on The Police, Squeeze, Joe Jackson and other British New Wave artists, R&B musicians Janet Jackson and Barry White and country rockers 38 Special and the Ozark Mountain Daredevils.
By the late ’80s, Alpert and Moss were operating out of a Hollywood lot where Charlie Chaplin once made movies, but they struggled to keep up with ever-higher recording contracts and sold A&M to Polygram for an estimated $500 million. They remained at the label, but clashed with Polygram’s management and left in 1993, one of their last signings a singer-musician from Kennett, Missouri: Sheryl Crow. (Alpert and Moss later sued Polygram for violating their contract’s integrity clause and reached a $200 million settlement.)
For a few years, Alpert and Moss ran Almo Records, where performers included Garbage, Imogen Heap and Gillian Welch.
“We wanted people to be happy,” Moss told The New York Times in 2010. “You can’t force people to do a certain kind of music. They make their best music when they are doing what they want to do, not what we want them to do.”
Clarence Avant, whose decades of trailblazing work as an artist manager, mentor, executive and record label owner earned him the title of “Godfather of Black Music,” died Sunday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 92.
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“Clarence leaves behind a loving family and a sea of friends and associates that have changed the world and will continue to change the world for generations to come,” his family said in a statement. “The joy of his legacy eases the sorrow of our loss.”
As a manager early on in his career, the North Carolina native worked with Sarah Vaughan, Freddie Hubbard, Little Willie John, Jimmy Smith and producer Creed Taylor, among others. He went on to broker the sale of Stax Records in the 1960s and notably discovered and signed “Ain’t No Sunshine” singer Bill Withers. In the ’70s, Avant founded KAGB-FM (Avant Garde Broadcasting), one of the first Black-owned radio stations in the U.S.
He also launched two record companies, Sussex and Tabu, cultivating rosters that included Withers, Dennis Coffey, the S.O.S. Band, Wadsworth Mansion, The Gallery and The Presidents.
Avant’s connection with the S.O.S. Band sparked a introduction to emerging songwriting/production duo Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis. Avant played an instrumental role in the pair’s success (as well as that of another hit-making duo, Reid and Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds). He was also the promoter of Michael Jackson’s “Bad” tour, Jackson’s first ever solo world tour.
He was named Motown chairman in 1993 and four years later became the first African-American to serve on the International Management Board for PolyGram.
Avant ran his Interior Music Group and Avant Garde Music publishing companies until they were sold in 2018 to Universal Music Group.
Avant was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021 and in 2019, was honored by the Recording Academy with the Grammy Salute to Industry Icons award. Over the decades he also received a Thurgood Marshall Lifetime Achievement Award, an NAACP Image Awards Hall Of Fame Award, a BET Honors Entrepreneur Award, and induction into the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2008, the Recording Academy honored Avant with its Trustees Award.
Involved in the social and political arenas, his relationships range from the presidential (Bill Clinton, Barack Obama) to the entrepreneurial (Oprah Winfrey). Avant was the subject of the Netflix documentary The Black Godfather (2019), directed by Hudlin and produced by his daughter, Nicole Avant.
Tom Jones, the lyricist, director and writer of The Fantasticks, the longest-running musical in history, has died. He was 95.
Jones died Friday (Aug. 11) at his home in Sharon, Connecticut, according to Dan Shaheen, a co-producer of The Fantasticks, who worked with Jones since the 1980s. The cause was cancer.
Jones, who teamed up with composer Harvey Schmidt on The Fantasticks and the Broadway shows 110 in the Shade and I Do! I Do!, was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1998.
The Fantasticks, based on an obscure play by Edmond Rostand, doesn’t necessarily have the makings of a hit. The set is just a platform with poles, a curtain and a wooden box.
The tale, a mock version of Romeo and Juliet, concerns a young girl and boy, secretly brought together by their fathers, and an assortment of odd characters.
Scores of actors have appeared in the show, from the opening cast in 1960 that included Jerry Orbach and Rita Gardner, to stars such as Ricardo Montalban and Kristin Chenoweth, to Frozen star Santino Fontana. The show was awarded Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre in 1991.
“So many people have come, and this thing stays the same — the platform, the wooden box, the cardboard moon,” Jones told The Associated Press in 2013. “We just come and do our little thing and then we pass on.”
For nearly 42 years the show chugged along at the 153-seat Sullivan Street Playhouse in Greenwich Village, finally closing in 2002 after 17,162 performances — a victim both of a destroyed downtown after 9/11 and a new post-terrorism, edgy mood.
In 2006, The Fantasticks found a new home in The Snapple Theater Center — later The Theater Center — an off-Broadway complex in the heart of Times Square. In 2013, the show celebrated reaching 20,000 performances. It closed in 2017, ending as the longest-running production of any kind in the history of American theater with a total of an astonishing 21,552 performances.
“My mind doesn’t grasp it, in a way,” Jones said. “It’s like life itself — you get used to it and you don’t notice how extraordinary it is. I’m grateful for it and I’m astonished by it.”
Its best known song, “Try To Remember,” has been recorded by hundreds of artists over the decades, including Ed Ames, Harry Belafonte, Barbra Streisand and Placido Domingo. “Soon It’s Gonna Rain” and “They Were You” are also among the musical’s most recognized songs.
The lyrics for “Try to Remember” go: “Try to remember the kind of September/ When life was slow and oh, so mellow/ Try to remember the kind of September/ When grass was green and grain was yellow.”
Its longevity came despite early reviews that were not too kind. The New York Herald Tribune critic only liked Act 2, and The New York Times’ critic sniffed that the show was “the sort of thing that loses magic the longer it endures.”
In 1963, Jones and Schmidt wrote the Broadway show 110 in the Shade, which earned the duo a Tony Award nomination for best composer and lyricist. I Do! I Do!, their two-character Broadway musical, followed in 1967, also earning them a Tony nomination for best composer and lyricist.
Jones is survived by two sons, Michael and Sam.
“Such a good guy. I truly adored him,” wrote Broadway veteran Danny Burstein on Facebook.
Robbie Robertson, beloved guitarist, songwriter and frontman of The Band, died after an unspecified long illness on Wednesday (Aug. 9). He was 80 years old.
Robertson’s longtime manager, Jared Levine, shared the devastating news in a statement: “Robbie was surrounded by his family at the time of his death, including his wife, Janet, his ex-wife, Dominique, her partner Nicholas, and his children Alexandra, Sebastian, Delphine, and Delphine’s partner Kenny. He is also survived by his grandchildren Angelica, Donovan, Dominic, Gabriel, and Seraphina. Robertson recently completed his fourteenth film music project with frequent collaborator Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon. In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that donations be made to the Six Nations of the Grand River to support a new Woodland Cultural Centre.”
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The Toronto, Ontario-born artist began playing guitar at age 10, and at just 16 years old he joined drummer Levon Helm in the Hawks, the backing band for Ronnie Hawkins. The Hawks went on to play with Bob Dylan on his legendary Going Electric tours in 1965 and 1966, and recorded the seminal “basement tapes” with the legend before changing their group’s name to The Band. They released their debut Music From Big Pink album in 1968, which featured the Robertson-penned classic, “The Weight,” and the group performed at Woodstock Festival a year later.
Robertson was the sole writer of The Band’s first four hits on the Billboard Hot 100 — “The Weight” (peaked at No. 63), “Up on Cripple Creek” (No. 25), “Rag Mama Rag” (No. 57), and “Time to Kill” (No. 77). He was also the sole writer of the biggest hit Joan Baez ever had, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” which reached No. 3 in 1971.
After eight years as a band, Robertson ended the group in 1976, culminating in The Band’s legendary farewell concert, The Last Waltz. Dylan, Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell all joined the group for the performance at San Francisco’s Winterland and a corresponding concert film was directed by Martin Scorsese. The Last Waltz soundtrack was released in 1978 and peaked at No. 16 on the Billboard 200 albums chart.
Robertson also delved into the film world, co-writing, producing, appearing in and composing the source music for Carny (1979), starring Gary Busey and Jodie Foster. He went on to create and produce music for Scorsese’s Raging Bull (1980), King Of Comedy (1983), and The Color Of Money (1986), which included “It’s In The Way That You Use It,” co-written with Clapton. Robertson scored, consulted for, produced or supervised music for numerous iconic films throughout the years, including American Beauty (1999), Any Given Sunday (1999) Gangs Of New York (2002), The Departed (2006), Shutter Island (2009), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), and Silence (2016).
Robertson made his solo album debut in 1987 with his Grammy nominated self-titled album, featuring guests Peter Gabriel and U2 and the beloved track “Somewhere Down The Crazy River.” His sixth and final solo album, Sinematic, was released in 2019.
The Band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1989 and received a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy in 2008. Robertson never won a Grammy in competition, despite five nods over the years, but he won five Juno Awards in his native Canada, including three in 1989 — album of the year (for his eponymous solo debut album), male vocalist of the year and producer of the year (in tandem with Daniel Lanois).
Additional reporting by Paul Grein.
Enigmatic singer-songwriter Sixto Diaz Rodriguez — commonly referred to as just Rodriguez — has died at 81. The Detroit musician whose slow boil rise to international acclaim was chronicled in the Oscar-winning 2012 documentary Searching for Sugar Man, died on Tuesday night (Aug. 8) according to a statement on his official website.
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“It is with great sadness that we at Sugarman.org announce that Sixto Diaz Rodriguez has passed away earlier today,” read the note. “We extend our most heartfelt condolences to his daughters – Sandra, Eva and Regan – and to all his family.” According to the Detroit News, Rodriguez had been in declining health but at press time a cause of death had not been revealed.
The Dylan-esque folk singer recorded two albums in the early 1970s that were released to little notice, Cold Fact (1970) and Coming From Reality (1971), leading the aspiring troubadour to give up on his musical dream, start a family and pursue a philosophy degree as he unsuccessfully ran for a series of local poltical offices.
The News said after failed bids at mayor and state senate, Rodriguez could often be seen walking in Detroit’s Cass Corridor neighborhood with a guitar slung over his shoulder, with most onlookers unaware of his former musical aspirations. That changed in 1979 when he was invited to perform in Australia to celebrate the re-release of his albums; he toured there again in 1981. At the time, it was rumored that he had taken his life by shooting himself on stage (another false story claimed he’d died of a drug overdose) after releasing Coming From Reality on Detroit’s Sussex record label, a false report his absence only served to feed amid a bubbling popularity Down Under.
A decade later, he discovered that his music was even more influential in South Africa, where, unbeknownst to him, his psychedelic-tinged, wistful folk ruminations had become wildly popular among South African youth, who embraced them as anthems against the repressive, racist apartheid government. Though long retired from touring, Rodriguez booked some arena gigs in the nation in 1998 to rabid response and later saw his music re-discovered by artists such as DJ/producer David Holmes, who used Cold Shot‘s opening track, “Sugar Man” for his 2002 Come Get It, I Got It compilation alongside songs by Muddy Waters, The Staples Singers, Cyril Neville and Betty Adams. Nas sampled Rodriguez singing the chorus from “Sugar Man” on his 2001 Stillmatic song “You’re Da Man.”
The uptick in interest led to the re-issues of the albums and a world tour, a renaissance that was capped by the best documentary feature Oscar-winning 2012 film Searching for Sugar Man, which chronicled two fans’ journey to find out what happened to their favorite singer. In fact, it was those two Cape Town diehards, rock journalist Craig Bartholomew and Stephen “Sugar” Segerman, who would become the focus of the film thanks to their dogged search to find out what happened to their favorite musician.
“Like a lot of people here, I discovered Rodriguez while I was in the army, which every 18-year-old used to have to do,” Segerman told the Detroit paper in 2008. “He was on everyone’s cassette tapes. It’s great pop music. But you start to realize this is raw, brutally honest ― and that’s the chord it struck. I was in the army, but I didn’t want to be a soldier. I didn’t support apartheid. Raw, brutal honest had lots of appeal… I told him, ‘In South Africa, you’re bigger than Elvis.’”
Dave Matthews, who was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, met Rodriguez before playing Pine Knob in Clarkston, MI in 2022 and later praised him from the stage, telling the crowd that the singer was “one of my heroes growing up” in South Africa.
Rodriguez was born on July 10, 1942 in Detroit as the sixth child of Mexican immigrants. He began his career in 1967 with his debut single, “I’ll Slip Away,” followed by his signing to Sussex — a division of Buddah Records (Isley Brothers, Melanie, The Five Stairsteps) — which released his two albums.
His music earned comparisons to Dylan and Cat Stevens, who gentle 1970s folk anthems of love and understanding were tame compared to Rodriguez’s often more politically leaning lyrics. “Talking about the rich folks/ Rich folks have the same jokes/ And they park in basic places/ The priest is preaching/ From a shallow grave/ He counts his money/ Then he paints you saved,” he sang on the acid-tongue acoustic anthem “Rich Folks Hoax” from Cold Fact.
Both of his studio albums were re-issued by Light int he Attic in 2009 and the upswell in interest thanks to the film led him to perform with a full orchestra on The Late Show With David Letterman in 2012, as well as at the Coachella, Montreaux Jazz and Glastonbury festivals in 2013.
Listen to “Rich Folks Hoax” and watch Rodriguez on Letterman below.
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Angus Cloud, the actor who starred on HBO’s Euphoria, has died. He was 25. Cloud’s family announced the news on Monday. “It is with the heaviest heart that we had to say goodbye to an incredible human today. As an artist, a friend, a brother and a son, Angus was special to all of us in […]
Paul Reubens, the comic actor known for his portrayal of the character Pee-wee Herman, has died. He was 70. News of the star’s death was announced on his Facebook and Instagram pages, which revealed that Reubens died Sunday (July 30) after a battle with cancer. “Last night we said farewell to Paul Reubens, an iconic […]