State Champ Radio obituary
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Melinda Ledbetter Wilson, wife of Beach Boys star Brian Wilson has died. She was 77 years old. Wilson took to Instagram on Tuesday (Jan. 30) to announce the devastating news, alongside two photos of his wife. “My heart is broken. Melinda, my beloved wife of 28 years, passed away this morning,” he wrote, without indicating […]
It’s so hard to say goodbye … especially to talented creators who have contributed beautiful works of art that have made the world a brighter place. But while no one can live forever, musicians’ compositions will go on to be enjoyed by future generations. The world of music had a rough start when on Jan. […]
Melanie, the pop singer behind tracks “Brand New Key” and “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)” who performed at Woodstock, has died. She was 76 years old.
The singer’s three children — Leilah, Jeordie, and Beau Jarred — shared a message on Facebook this week, writing: “We are heartbroken, but want to thank each and every one of you for the affection you have for our Mother, and to tell you that she loved all of you so much! She was one of the most talented, strong and passionate women of the era and every word she wrote, every note she sang reflected that. Our world is much dimmer, the colors of a dreary, rainy Tennessee pale with her absence today, but we know that she is still here, smiling down on all of us, on all of you, from the stars.”
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No cause of death was given in the post, but the siblings made a request for fans, that on Wednesday (Jan. 24), at 10 p.m. CT, “each of you lights a candle in honor of Melanie. Raise, raise them high, high up again. Illuminate the darkness, and let us all be connected in remembrance of the extraordinary woman who was wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and friend to so very many people.”
Melanie — full name Melanie Safka — was born in Astoria, New York, and had two top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart throughout her career, “Brand New Key” and “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain).” According to Variety, she was in the studio earlier this month working on her 32nd album, which was a project of cover songs.
Frank Farian, the Wizard of Oz-like Svengali behind the rise and fall of disgraced late 1980s musical duo Milli Vanilli has died at age 82. BBC News reported that Farian’s family released a statement on Tuesday (Jan. 23) that the elusive German producer/songwriter had passed away at his home in Miami of undisclosed causes; at press time Billboard had not independently confirmed Farian’s death.
The studio maestro born in Kirn, Germany on July 18, 1941 began his career in the mid-1960s as a vocalist for the rock band Frankie Boys Schatten. After struggling to break through, Farian hit upon the formula that would twice take him to the highest heights of global success via his first musical sleight of hand vehicle, pop group Boney M.
A talented vocalist and arranger with a golden ear for hooks, Farian assembled the 1970s disco funk group featuring three female vocalist — Marcia Barrett, Liz Mitchell and Maizie Williams — and fronted by Aruban go-go dancer Bobby Farrell after breaking through in a number of European markets in 1975 with the bouncy “Do You Wanna Bump.” The song was credited to “Boney M,” despite Farian singing all the high and low vocal parts. In a genius marketing move, Farian decided to put a face to his creation in time to release Boney M’s 1976 debut album, Take the Heat Off Me.
Unbeknownst to the group’s fans, Farian sang all the male lead vocals for the group that would go on to sell more than 100 million records thanks to such quirky, but undeniable dance floor jams as “Rasputin,” “Daddy Cool,” the Bobby Hebb cover “Sunny” and the swaying, reggae-lite “Rivers of Babylon.” The group released two more albums in quick succession and achieved global success, with seemingly little concern for the open secret that Farrell — who died in 2010 at 61 — was not its actual lead singer, but rather a gifted performer who fronted the band with the assist of more polished backing vocalists.
Farian also later revealed that in addition to Farrell, Williams had not sung on the group’s albums either. By 1981 fractures had formed in Boney M and Farrell split following a fall-out with Farian, cueing up another soon-to-be-familiar trope in the producer’s modus operandi: replacing the non-singing lead singer with a fresh face, in this case singer Reggie Tsiboe. Boney M released eight studio albums in total to diminishing returns, reuniting and splitting up a number of times throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
Credited with helping to popularize the Eurodisco sound and establishing one of Germany’s most technologically advanced 1980s recording studios with his Frankfurt-based FAR Studios, Farian had another, even bigger, trick up his sleeve. FAR was where Farian cooked up his second, and even more globally successful second act: Milli Vanilli. After hearing the hip-hop/R&B track “Girl You Know It’s True” by Baltimore-based hip-hop group Numarx in a German nightclub, Farian hatched his another studio creation, again recording the basic tracks on his own and hiring a group of mostly ex-pat American session singers, rappers and musicians to lay down the vocals for the group that would score three No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100.
Needing a face for the band whose version of “Girl You Know It’s True” was blowing up all over Europe, Farian spotted aspiring singers dancers Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan in a club and hired them to perform as the frontmen of his latest phantom act. The photogenic, high-energy pair perfectly fit the part, with their signature flowing braids, skintight bicycle shorts and peppy dance moves. The songs on the European debut album, All or Nothing, were so catchy, in fact, that legendary American record label boss Clive Davis of Arista Records licensed the collection and released a revamped version in March 1989 called Girl You Know It’s True.
With the addition of the soon-to-be No. 1 Diane Warren-penned balled “Blame It on the Rain” — alongside No. 1 hits “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You” and “Baby Don’t Forget My Number” — Milli mania took over the world. The American version spent 78 weeks on the Billboard 200 albums chart — peaking at No. 1 for 8 weeks, making Milli Vanilli one of the year’s most dominant pop acts.
But if anyone had been listening to the press interviews the duo were doing in Europe they would have quickly surmised that something was rotten in Frankfurt, given the thick accents and thin command of the English language by Munich-bred Pilatus and Paris-born Morvan. Once the group joined the Club MTV tour in 1989, where repeated equipment failures with the pre-recorded vocals made it crystal clear that Rob and Fab were lip synching, the charade began to fall apart.
With both men pushing hard to sing on the follow-up album — a request that Farian vehemently shut down — their growing intransigence created a tension that would result in one of the biggest scandals in Grammy Awards history. After winning the Grammy for best new artist at the 1990 awards, where they also bucked history by lip synching during their performance, Farian admitted to the ruse in a Nov. 15, 1990 press conference. That admission resulted in Milli Vanilli getting dumped from Arista and having the ignoble asterisk as the only act in Grammy history to have their award taken back.
Farian shrugged off the pearl clutching by some in the American media — as well as a handful of fans who sued Arista and parent Company BMG in a class action that resulted in refunds for concert tickets and albums purchased — by blithely telling the Washington Post at the time that the group was, “one part was visual, one part recorded. Such projects are an art form in themselves, and the fans were happy with the music.”
In addition to his work with MV and Boney M, Farian produced and mixed Meat Loaf’s 1986 album Blind Before I Stop and his high-tech FAR studio was where Stevie Wonder recorded his best-selling single ever, 1984’s “I Just Called to Say I Love You.” Farian kept a low profile throughout much of the 2000s and revealed in 2022 that he’d undergone heart surgery that reportedly included the implanting of a pig heart valve. His former assistant/girlfriend Ingrid “Milli” Segieth, who provided the inspiration for MV’s name, told German paper Bild that she’d seen Farian over the new year in Miami and that he was “physically very weak, but was still full of energy” and working the studio all day on new music.
The producer was markedly absent in this year’s Milli Vanilli biopic — which featured commentary from this writer — after the film’s director was unable to get the reclusive music maker to agree to an interview.
Norman Jewison, the multifaceted filmmaker who could direct a racial drama (In the Heat of the Night), stylish thriller (The Thomas Crown Affair), musical (Fiddler on the Roof) or romantic comedy (Moonstruck) with the best of them, has died. He was 97.
Jewison died Saturday at home — his family does not want to specify exactly where — publicist Jeff Sanderson announced.
A seven-time Oscar nominee, Jewison received the prestigious Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences in 1999.
Known for his ability to coax great performances out of his actors — 12 of his players were nominated for Oscars, while five of his features made the cut for best picture — the most distinguished film director in Canadian history often used conventional genre plots to take on social injustice.
Improbably, he got his start directing musical specials on television.
Jewison earned best director and best picture nominations for Fiddler on the Roof (1971) and Moonstruck (1987); received another nom for helming In the Heat of the Night (1967), a winner for best picture; and added two others for producing the wacky Red Scare comedy The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966) and A Soldier’s Story (1984).
On leave from the Royal Canadian Navy, Jewison, then 18, started out hitchhiking in Chicago and eventually made it to Memphis, Tennessee, where he jumped on a bus during a hot day. As the naive Toronto native headed toward a seat in the back next to an open window, the bus started and then stopped, he recalled in a 2011 interview with NPR.
“The bus driver looked at me,” he said. “He said, ‘Can’t you read the sign?’ And there was a little sign, made of tin, swinging off a wire in the center of the bus and it said, ‘Colored people to the rear.’
“And I turned around and I saw two or three Black citizens sitting around me, and … a few white people sitting way at the top of the bus. And I didn’t know what to do, I was just embarrassed. So I just got off the bus and he left me there. I was left standing in this hot sun and thinking about what I had just been through. That this was my first experience with racial prejudice. And it really stuck with me.”
Years later, heeding the advice of Robert F. Kennedy, who thought America was ready for a film about racial injustice, Jewison took on In the Heat of the Night, which starred Sidney Poitier as a Black detective from Philadelphia and Rod Steiger as a racist police chief. Both have to work together to solve a murder in a Southern town.
Four days before the 1968 Academy Awards, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, and the Oscars were postponed for two days. Jewison attended King’s funeral, and though he lost out to Mike Nichols of The Graduate in the director race, In the Heat of the Night won five statuettes.
Racism also was central to two other Jewison films: The wartime-set A Soldier’s Story and The Hurricane (1999), the latter starring Denzel Washington as Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, the real-life boxer wrongly imprisoned for murder.
Yet Jewison also had a flair for comedies, as seen with Moonstruck, based on the John Patrick Shanley play and starring best actress winner Cher. Focusing on an Italian American family in Brooklyn, Moonstruck was a box office and critical success.
Jewison also was behind such varied pictures as Send Me No Flowers (1964), The Cincinnati Kid (1965), Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), Rollerball (1975), F.I.S.T. (1978), … And Justice for All (1979), Agnes of God (1985) and Other People’s Money (1991).
Norman Frederick Jewison was born on July 21, 1926, in Toronto, where his parents ran a general store/post office. He developed an early interest in the arts, studying piano and music theory at the Royal Conservatory, and staged and appeared in shows and musical comedies in high school.
Following graduation, Jewison made his professional debut in a minstrel show, which he also directed and co-wrote, then served in Canada’s Navy during World War II. Back home, he graduated from the University of Toronto’s Victoria College in 1949 with a B.A. in general arts.
Jewison worked as a cab driver in Toronto and occasionally performed as a radio actor for the CBC. In 1950, he moved to London for a two-year work-study stint with the BBC.
The CBC called him back to work in the new medium of television, and Jewison wrote, directed and produced some of his country’s most popular shows and specials. He hired Reuben Shipp, a writer from Montreal who had been deported from the U.S. after refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, to work on the variety show The Barris Beat.
In 1950, CBS invited Jewison to New York to update the venerable TV musical Your Hit Parade. After he booked African-American singer Tommy Edwards, who had a hit with “It’s All in the Game,” to be on the program, he was called to a Madison Avenue meeting with a representative from Lucky Strike cigarettes, the show’s South Carolina-based sponsor.
“We’ve been doing Your Hit Parade on the radio and on television for many a year,” the exec told Jewison in an incident he recalled in his 2004 autobiography, This Terrible Business Has Been Good to Me. “We had Sinatra, rock ’n’ roll and soft stuff, but we never had a Black and, young fella, we ain’t about to start now.”
After an angry Jewison threatened to take this story to the newspapers, Lucky Strike caved and Edwards appeared on the show as scheduled. His integrity was evident, and big names wanted to work with him.
Jewison directed a 1960 special with the red-hot Harry Belafonte, the first on American television starring a Black performer; guided comeback star Judy Garland on a 1961 TV special and episodes of her CBS variety show; helmed The Million Dollar Incident, a comedy that saw Jackie Gleason kidnapped and held for ransom; and did The Broadway of Lerner and Loewe, with performances by Julie Andrews and Maurice Chevalier.
With a recommendation from Tony Curtis, Jewison left for L.A. and was hired to direct Universal Pictures’ 40 Pounds of Trouble (1962), which starred Curtis, Suzanne Pleshette and Phil Silvers in one of the first films shot at Disneyland.
He received a contract from the studio and followed by helming the light comedies The Thrill of It All (1963), starring Doris Day and James Garner; Send Me No Flowers, with Day and Rock Hudson; and The Art of Love (1965), with Garner, Elke Sommer and Angie Dickinson.
When producer Martin Ransohoff fired director Sam Peckinpah from The Cincinnati Kid, Jewison was given the reins to the Steve McQueen-Edward G. Robinson drama. The Hollywood Reporter called his work “daring, imaginative and assured,” and he was on a roll.
He produced his first film (and directed, too) The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming!, a wild spoof of Russian paranoia that starred Alan Arkin and Carl Reiner (who had written Thrill of It All and Art of Love).
After In the Heat of the Night, Jewison produced and directed the stylishly erotic The Thomas Crown Affair, starring McQueen and Faye Dunaway; produced The Landlord (1970), a racial dramedy directed by his former film editor, Hal Ashby; and produced and helmed Gaily, Gaily, starring Landlord star Beau Bridges.
He had met Kennedy in a hospital in Sun Valley, Idaho, when their sons were injured while competing in a ski race, and he was supposed to meet with the presidential candidate on the night he was assassinated in Los Angeles.
“I was very disillusioned,” Jewison told THR’s Kevin Cassidy in a 2011 interview. “JFK had been assassinated, Bobby had been assassinated, I had marched in Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral in Atlanta. This was 1970, so I packed everyone up in L.A. and went to England.”
Jewison spent the next seven years in Europe, making such films as the high-grossing musical Fiddler on the Roof, shot on location in Yugoslavia and at London’s Pinewood Studios, and Jesus Christ Superstar and the Gregory Peck starrer Billy Two Hats (1974), both filmed in Israel.
Jewison went on to direct and produce the James Caan violent action film Rollerball, the Al Pacino courtroom thriller … And Justice for All and the charming romantic comedy Best Friends (1982), starring Burt Reynolds and Goldie Hawn.
Jewison also continued to explore weighty issues, with the plot of Agnes of God, starring Jane Fonda and Anne Bancroft, centering on the struggle between logic and the Catholic Church. His last film was the Nazi thriller The Statement (2003), starring Michael Caine.
Jewison served as producer of the 1981 Academy Awards, which were rescheduled after President Reagan was shot, and he earned an Emmy nomination in 2002 for directing the HBO telefilm Dinner With Friends.
Jewison returned to Toronto in 1978 and lived on a 240-acre farm in Ontario. He hosted a gala picnic for years at the Toronto International Film Festival.
In 1982, Jewison was made an officer of the Order of Canada, the nation’s highest civilian decoration, then set out to establish the Canadian equivalent of the American Film Institute.
“I got a phone call to visit the AFI in Beverly Hills,” Jewison told THR. “So I went up there and there’s a group of young filmmakers sitting on the floor and there’s John Ford with a bottle of whiskey. And he’s answering all their questions. I was just blown away. It was very exciting. So I thought, ‘Gee, if I could set up something like this in Canada, that would be great.’”
The result was the Canadian Film Centre, founded in 1988 in Toronto.
Survivors include his second wife, Lynne St. David; his children, Kevin (and his wife, Suzanne), Michael (Anita) and Jenny (David); and his grandchildren Ella, Megan, Alexandra, Sam and Henry. Celebrations of his life will be held in Los Angeles and Toronto.
Said Jewison in his Thalberg acceptance speech:
“My one real regret about winning this prize is that, you know, it’s not like the Nobel or the Pulitzer. I mean, the Thalberg award comes with no money attached. If it did, if it did, I would share it with the Canadian Film Centre and the AFI, where the next generation of filmmakers are preparing to entertain the world in the new millennium.
“And my parting thought to all those young filmmakers is this: Just find some good stories. Never mind the gross, the top 10, bottom 10, what’s the rating, what’s the demographic. You know something? The biggest-grossing picture is not necessarily the best picture.”
This story was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Mike Taylor, the U.S.-born music man who forged an outstanding major label career in his adopted homeland, Australia, where he A&R’d Delta Goodrem’s mega-hit album Innocent Eyes, has died following a battle with cancer. He was 54.
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“After enduring a long illness, Michael Taylor passed away peacefully on Jan. 11, 2024, in Brewster, New York, surrounded by family and loved ones,” reads a message circulated by family members.
Taylor moved to Sydney, Australia in 2001 when he joined Sony Music as head of A&R for Sony Music. There, Taylor worked on Goodrem’s Innocent Eyes, an album that created history, and cleaned up on the charts – and later, awards ceremonies.
Innocent Eyes logged an unprecedented 29 weeks at No.1 on the ARIA Albums Chart following its release in March 2003, and was declared the highest-selling album award at the ARIA Awards two years running. Delta snagged seven ARIA Awards in 2003, and was the first artist to have five No. 1 singles on the Australian chart from a debut album.
Taylor was rewarded by Sony Music with a stint in the U.S., where he served as senior director with the major’s Epic Records division. Less than two years later, he was back in Sydney, starting what would be a 15-year tenure with Universal Music Australia, which included stints as executive VP, A&R and founding general manager and head of UMA imprint, Island Records Australia.
At UMA, he was instrumental in growing the company’s domestic roster, signing a lineup of stars including Hilltop Hoods, Havana Brown, Baker Boy, Briggs, Clare Bowditch, Shane Nicholson, The McClymonts and Dean Lewis.
In September 2022, Taylor announced plans to leave his post as managing director of UMA, citing personal reasons and to dedicate more time to ongoing treatments.
Earlier in his career, Taylor had A&R stints in the U.S. with Columbia Records and at Madonna’s Maverick Recording Company.
For much of his time Down Under, Taylor’s was the only American accent to be heard at showcases and awards parties.
“I loved it then, and love it now. Living in Sydney is such an enjoyable life style,” he told this reporter in 2013, on his move to Australia. “I grew up in New York and lived in the city for years, so I wanted a change. In terms of the music scene and industry in Australia, I think it’s really vibrant, and punches way above its weight class for its population size.”
Outside of his day-to-day duties, Taylor and Peter Coquillard, now senior manager and head of international, Milk and Honey, established the Bali Songwriting Invitational, a camp where music creators could collaborate in paradise.
“Great songs are the key to success for an artist,” Taylor explained. “Writing in an environment that takes you out of your normal day to day can act be a catalyst to special songs.”
As news of his passing spread through the Australian industry, friends and colleagues remembered Taylor as one of the good guys, passionate about music, loyal to his people.
“Professionally respected and personally admired by everyone in the business,” is how Darren Aboud, COO at Select Music Agency, remembers his friend and former colleague. “He was a joy to work with; he gave so much back and his knowledge about cocktails was only surpassed by his knowledge of music.” Taylor and Aboud were appointed joint managing directors for Universal Music Labels Australia, as part of a restructuring unveiled in 2014. “His five-year fight with cancer was extraordinary,” recounts Aboud. “He was determined to live the best life no matter what he was up against.”
Adrian Wauchope, senior VP commercial at Warner Music Australasia, salutes Taylor as “a legend and a true music man,” while Don Elford, director of global partnerships at ASM Global, remembers Taylor as “the real deal.”
Taylor is survived by his wife Jenny and son Charlie.
His life and career will be celebrated this Saturday, Jan. 20 during a service at St Lawrence O’Toole Church, in Brewster, New York. A party will follow. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Charlie Taylor’s college fund.
Leon Wildes, a prominent immigration lawyer best known for his landmark, yearslong fight in the 1970s to prevent John Lennon from being deported and enable the former Beatle to receive permanent residency in the U.S., has died at age 90.
Wildes died Monday (Jan. 8) at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. His son — immigration attorney and Englewood, New Jersey Mayor Michael Wildes — said that he had been in failing health after a series of strokes.
“Dad felt he effectively lived the American Dream for a kid from Olyphant PA and spent his life facilitating the same experience for scores more,” said Michael Wildes, who is also the managing partner for the firm his father helped start, Wildes & Weinberg. “He was beloved by his family, was extraordinarily humble, and beloved by our Bar.”
Leon Wildes was a graduate of the New York University School of Law who co-founded Wildes & Weinberg in 1960 and, by the end of the decade, had gained enough stature to serve as president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. His name would become part of musical and political history after an old law school classmate, Alan Kahn, called in 1972 and told him that Lennon and Yoko Ono needed his help getting their visas extended.
Wildes agreed to meet with the couple at the Manhattan offices of Apple Records, the label founded by the Beatles in the late 1960s. But he did have one embarrassing confession about Lennon and his artist wife.
“I have no idea who these people are,” he told Kahn, later saying he misheard their names as “Jack Lemmon and Yoko Moto.”
What Wildes initially thought would be a formality turned into one of the most dramatic legal struggles of the era. Lennon and Ono had moved from England to New York City, trying to track down Ono’s daughter from a previous marriage, Kyoko Chan Cox, whom her ex-husband had abducted.
John and Yoko also were active in the New Left politics of the time, opposing the Vietnam War and backing efforts to defeat President Richard Nixon in his bid for re-election. With the minimum voting age lowered from 21 to 18, Lennon’s plans included a 1972 tour of the U.S. that would potentially attract millions of young people.
As government files later revealed, some Nixon supporters feared that Lennon could damage Nixon politically. In a February 1972 memo sent to Sen. Strom Thurmond, a South Carolina Republican and a member of a Senate subcommittee on internal security, aides recommended a “strategic countermeasure,” terminating Lennon’s visa. (The government would also try to deport Ono, a Tokyo native, but she was granted permanent residency in 1973).
Thurmond forwarded the memo to Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell, whose deputy, Richard Kleindienst, contacted the Immigration and Naturalization Service. In March, the INS informed the British rock star that his visa would not be extended. Officials cited a drug bust in London in 1968, when Lennon pleaded guilty to possession of “cannabis resin.” Under U.S. law at the time, non-residents faced deportation if “convicted of any law or regulation relating to the illicit possession” of narcotic drugs or marijuana.
Over the next two years, Lennon and Ono endured ongoing government harassment, with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover at times personally involved. Their phone was tapped and their whereabouts closely followed. Lennon would say the pressure helped lead to the temporary breakup of his marriage. The musician left for Los Angeles in 1973 and embarked on what he called his “long weekend” of drinking and drugs, ending with the couple reconciling in 1975.
Meanwhile, musicians and writers and other public figures urged the government to let him stay. Letters of support were signed by everyone from Fred Astaire and Dick Cavett to Saul Bellow and Stevie Wonder. Bob Dylan composed a hand-written note praising John and Yoko as enemies of “this mild dull taste of commercialism” forced on the culture by the “overpowering mass media.”
The Lennons didn’t always help their case. When the couple held their first press conference to discuss the deportation order, the two pulled tissues out of their pockets and declared the birth of a new country, “Nutopia,” a paradise with “no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people.” As representatives of Nutopia, John and Yoko granted themselves diplomatic immunity.
Yoko later apologized, Wildes would recall.
“Leon, you have to understand. We are artists. We have a message,” she told him.
Thanks to Wildes’ ingenuity and the shocking twists of politics in the 1970s, Lennon’s deportation was delayed and ultimately revoked. Wildes found a loophole in the immigration drug law after Lennon told his lawyer that he had been found guilty of possessing hashish, not marijuana (“Hash is much better than marijuana!” Lennon joked). Wildes also highlighted an obscure, unacknowledged government policy of “prosecutorial discretion,” under which officials used varying standards in deciding immigrant cases to pursue.
Meanwhile, the FBI’s targeting of Lennon ended after Nixon’s re-election in 1972, and the INS campaign to deport him began to lose momentum after the growing Watergate scandal led Nixon to resign in August 1974. By October 1975, Mitchell was among many former Nixon officials serving jail time, and Lennon was celebrating an extraordinary week of milestones. On Oct. 7, a federal appeals court judge in New York reversed the deportation order, citing the government’s “secret political grounds.” Two days later, on Lennon’s 35th birthday, Ono gave birth to their son, Sean.
For a final hearing, in July 1976, Wildes brought in Norman Mailer and Gloria Swanson, among others, to testify on Lennon’s behalf, and the INS granted the musician his green card.
“It’s great to be legal again,” Lennon said after the hearing.
The legacy of Lennon’s struggles would endure for decades. When President Barack Obama launched his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA), for which some children of immigrants were granted temporary relief from deportation, he drew upon reasoning similar to what Wildes had revealed on behalf of Lennon: prosecutorial discretion.
Rock stars, too, were affected. Mick Jagger, who also had been arrested in England on drug charges, was among those who found it easier to travel to the U.S.
“I have in my passport a notation stating that the ineligibility of my visa is withdrawn ‘because of the Lennon precedent’,” Jagger said in a 2005 book, Memories of John Lennon, published upon the 25th anniversary’s of Lennon’s murder. “So I have him in my memory every time I enter this country.”
Wildes continued to practice law after his time with Lennon and was an adjunct professor for more than 30 years at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. His honors included the Edith Lowenstein Memorial Award for excellence in advancing the practice of immigration law and the Elmer Fried Excellence in Teaching Award.
Wildes was married three times, most recently to Alice Goldberg Wildes, and is survived by two children, eight grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
Descended from European Jews, Wildes grew up in a small Pennsylvania community where he was often the only Jew in his class. He attended Yeshiva College as an undergraduate and became interested in immigration law after working with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society in the late 1950s. Wildes published articles in the Cardozo Law Review among other journals and wrote a book on the Lennon case, John Lennon Vs. the USA, that came out in 2016.
An opera fan when he was young, he would become fully vested in the Beatles universe, to the point of using “Imagine” as music when a caller to his office was placed on hold. He remained close to Yoko, appeared in the 2006 documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon and even attended some Beatles conventions, among them the Chicago-based Fest for Beatles Fans.
“I spoke there three times, and every time after I spoke, dozens of people came up, shook my hand and thanked me for what I had done for John Lennon,” he told Pennyblackmusic.co.uk in 2017. “And I learned from these wonderful people that it is really something to marvel about and to enjoy this beautiful music of the Beatles. I learned a lot about that kind of music, and now I favor it as well.”
Annie Nightingale, the pioneering BBC Radio 1 DJ, has died at 83. A statement shared Friday (Jan. 12) and attributed to her family says she “passed away yesterday at her home in London after a short illness.”
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Nightingale was the first female DJ on BBC Radio 1, where she started in 1970, ultimately becoming the station’s longest serving DJ. In 2010, Nightingale entered the Guinness Book of Records as the longest serving female radio presenter, a record she still holds. Her last broadcast was in late December 2023.
“Annie was a pioneer, trailblazer and an inspiration to many,” her family’s statement continues. “Her impulse to share that enthusiasm with audiences remained undimmed after six decades of broadcasting on BBC TV and radio globally.”
“Never underestimate the role model she became,” the statement went on. “Breaking down doors by refusing to bow down to sexual prejudice and male fear gave encouragement to generations of young women who, like Annie, only wanted to tell you about an amazing tune they had just heard. Watching Annie do this on television in the 1970s, most famously as a presenter on the BBC music show The Old Grey Whistle Test, or hearing her play the latest breakbeat techno on Radio One is testimony to someone who never stopped believing in the magic of rock n’ roll.”
BBC Radio 1 also reflected on Nightingale’s career and her impact. “Annie was a world class DJ, broadcaster and journalist, and throughout her entire career was a champion of new music and new artists,” Aled Haydn Jones, Head of BBC Radio 1, said in a statement posted to BBC Radio 1’s Instagram account. “She was the first female DJ on Radio 1 and over her 50 years on the station was a pioneer for women in the industry and in dance music. We have lost a broadcasting legend and, thanks to Annie, things will never be the same.”
Born near London in 1940, Nightingale began her career as a journalist and television presenter, later launching a line of clothing shops. She first came on the BBC Radio 1 airwaves in February 1970.
Nightingale is being widely celebrated, with BBC Radio 1’s other famous Annie, Annie Mac, writing on Instagram, “What a devastating loss. Annie Nightingale was a trailblazer, spirited, adventurous, fearless, hilarious, smart, and so good at her job. This is the woman who changed the face and sound of British TV and Radio broadcasting forever. You can’t underestimate it.”
Radio 1’s Pete Tong also commemorated Nightingale, recalling that “Annie was a pioneer, a trailblazer and a role model, who possessed a relentless passion to discover and champion new & groundbreaking music. During her career Annie championed everything from prog rock and punk to acid house, techno, big beat, breakbeat, dubstep and grime.
“Annie’s always been a massive inspiration for me in the sense that she carved out the path at Radio 1,” Tong continued, “proving you could have a career in radio by just staying in your lane and specializing in championing new and exciting artists. Play what you love. She wrote the book on what music radio could be.”
The Voice contestant Lauren Duski is mourning the death of her mother, Janis Duski, in a touching tribute posted to Instagram. According to TMZ, which first reported the news, the Tuscarora Township Police in Indiana River, Michigan, said Janis was found dead in an apparent suicide.
In her Instagram post, Lauren Duski says she was hesitant to share the news publicly but thought she might be able to help others through her mother’s story.
“I wasn’t planning on sharing this but these last few days I’ve been feeling the most violent pull in my heart to remind you to please talk to one another,” Duski wrote. “If you’re struggling, do not be ashamed. Do not be ashamed. Do not be ashamed. Your mental health is nothing to be ashamed of and neither is talking about it. We are all trying to navigate this beautiful, messy life. I’ve learned that even the strongest humans have a breaking point. Be patient and gentle with yourself. Minute by minute. Please do not lose hope. Trust in God. There is always another chance…and there will never be another you.”
Duski competed on season 12 of The Voice in 2017 and chose to join Blake Shelton’s team among the three coaches who turned their chairs for her audition. The country singer finished as the season’s runner-up.
Lauren’s late mom can be seen, alongside her dad, celebrating her daughter’s success backstage in her blind audition video, in which she covered Jewel’s “You Were Meant for Me.”
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Three of Duski’s covers on The Voice hit the Billboard Hot 100 following her season: “Deja Vu” (No. 43), “The Dance” (No. 92) and “Ghost in This House” (No. 98).
Read Lauren’s full message about her mom below:
Said goodbye to my best friend and hero this past Friday. My mom was the greatest human I’ve ever known. There was no one who loved harder. She offered her entire being — heart and soul to everyone she encountered and always held up the mirror to remind you of how wonderful and special you were. She set the bar above the moon. She adored her family and her grandchildren. She was an endless dreamer. brilliant. an absolute powerhouse. Top of her class AND president in dental school. Served as a captain in the United States Air Force. She pioneered the Wolverine Patriot Project alongside the University of Michigan School of Dentistry and made it her mission to provide oral health care to disabled and homeless Michigan military veterans. We called her “Yoda” for her endless wisdom, energy, wit, and humor. She was selfless in every way. She never quit. Especially with a fishing pole in her hand. She loved to spend time exploring and road tripping across country with just a road map.
She saw God in everyone and everything.
Mom, you are infinitely loved. I will miss you every second of every day. I still don’t know how the hell I’m supposed to do this without you. I will thank God every day for our 32 years together and see you every time I look in that mirror.
I wasn’t planning on sharing this but these last few days I’ve been feeling the most violent pull in my heart to remind you to please talk to one another. If you’re struggling, do not be ashamed. Do not be ashamed. Do not be ashamed. Your mental health is nothing to be ashamed of and neither is talking about it. We are all trying to navigate this beautiful, messy life. I’ve learned that even the strongest humans have a breaking point. Be patient and gentle with yourself. Minute by minute. Please do not lose hope. Trust in God. There is always another chance…and there will never be another you.
We have the opportunity to save a generation and beyond. Say “I love you” every chance you get. Don’t wait. You never know the true impact you have on those around you.
I love you, mom. Forever. May you rest in glorious peace.
Janis Patricia Duski – 1964-2024
If you’re thinking about suicide, or are worried about a friend or loved one, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, available 24 hours, at 1-800-273-8255.
David Soul, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed star of hit 1970s cop series Starsky & Hutch and soft rock balladeer has died at 80. In a statement on Soul’s site, the actor’s wife, Helen Snell, wrote, “David Soul – beloved husband, father, grandfather and brother – died yesterday (4 January) after a valiant battle for life in the loving company of family. He shared many extraordinary gifts in the world as actor, singer, storyteller, creative artist and dear friend. His smile, laughter and passion for life will be remembered by the many whose lives he has touched.”
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The star born David Richard Solbert on Aug. 28, 1943 in Chicago bounced between acting and singing for much of his career following an itinerant childhood in which his family moved from South Dakota to Berlin, where his father, history and political science professor Dr. David Solberg, served as the senior representative for the Lutheran World Federation refugee relief organization in the early 1950s.
According to his official bio, the talented baseball player was offered a pro contract with the Chicago White Sox after graduating from high school, but opted instead to join his family in Mexico after his second year of college, where he befriended a group of radicalized students who gifted him a guitar and taught him their nation’s indigenous songs. Soul later hitchhiked back to the Midwest and auditioned for a gig singing folk songs at the Ten O’Clock Scholar, a Univ. of Minnesota coffee house which had once hosted a young Bob Dylan.
After co-founding the Firehouse Theater in Minneapolis in the 1960s and foreshortening his last name to the more pithy “Soul,” the actor hit upon a gimmick of performing his folk songs while wearing a ski mask and calling himself “The Covered Man.” That bit landed him agency representation from the William Morris Agency, “sight unseen,” and a recurring spot on The Merv Griffin Show, where he performed his masked act; he also signed with MGM Records and released his debut album, The Covered Man.
After his first TV role in the light children’s series Flipper, Soul got a spot on the comedy I Dream of Jeannie and appeared in a 1967 episode of Star Trek, which led to his next gig playing Joshua Bolt on the comedy Western Here Come the Brides from 1968-1970. Soul appeared in a few more small screen gigs before Clint Eastwood cast him as a police officer in the gritty 1973 crime drama — and Dirty Harry sequel — Magnum Force.
That cop turn led to the defining role of Soul’s career as detective Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson on the police procedural Starsky & Hutch (1975-1979), where he starred alongside Paul Michael Glaser’s David Michael Starsky in the popular series in which the men tore around the fictional city of Bay City, CA in their signature red Ford Gran Torino with a white stripe on the side.
Soul went on to make cameos in a number of other popular 1970s dramas and comedies — Cannon, Gunsmoke, Ironside, Medical Center, The Streets of San Francisco and All in the Family, among many others — while also directing and and producing films and theater productions throughout the 1980s and staring in a number of West End production after moving to London in the 1990s.
He also launched a parallel music career with a series of soft rock hits under his stage name, beginning with his 1976 self-titled debut album, which featured a mix of originals and covers of songs by Leonard Cohen and Dr. Music. His 1976 ballad “Don’t Give Up On Us” hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (while also topping the UK charts) and was followed by the 1977 No. 1 UK hit “Silver Lady” (which hit No. 5 on the U.S. charts). Several more albums followed, with diminishing returns, including 1977’s Playing to an Audience of One, 1979’s Band of Friends, 1982’s The Best Days of My Life and his final full-length, 1997’s Leave a Light On.
Listen to “Don’t Give Up On Us” below.
