Shel (Sheldon) Talmy, an American report producer who performed an important function within the ’60s British invasion, died on Nov. 13, as a result of issues from a stroke. He was 87.
In its obituary,
Billboardterms Talmy “a prolific and influential producer who oversaw a number of the most iconic songs in rock historical past.”
His lengthy record of credit embody seminal songs by The Kinks (together with “You Really Got Me,” “All Day and All of the Night,” “Tired of Waiting” and “Waterloo Sunset”), The Who (“My Generation,” “I Can’t Explain,” “The Kids Are Alright”), and Australian expats The Easybeats (“Friday on My Mind”).
The Chicago-born Talmy began his profession as a tv recording engineer at Los Angeles’ Conway Studios. “Three or four days later I was an engineer,” he informed
Combine journal in 1990. “I had always liked technical things, and I just took to it.”
After working with artists akin to Gary Paxton, The Castells and legendary band The Wrecking Crew, Talmy moved to the U.Ok. within the early Sixties. He arrived in London on vacation in 1962 and took what was supposed as a short lived summer time job with Decca Information, but ended up resident within the U.Ok. for the following twenty years, having a big impact on the scene there.
In addition to these hits for The Who and the Kinks, Talmy produced “I Pity the Fool,” recorded by the Manish Boys, which featured an 18-year-old singer names David Jones – later often known as David Bowie. Different credit embody singles and albums for Manfred Mann (“Just Like a Woman”), Roy Harper, Pentangle, Small Faces, Amen Nook (“If Paradise Is Half as Nice”), Chad and Jeremy (“Summer Song”), the Creation, Lee Hazlewood, and, within the late ’70s, punk veterans The Damned.
Selection notes that “Talmy’s work with the Kinks and the Who particularly launched a muscle and heft to up to date rock music that was unprecedented for the time — the Kinks’ Dave Davies used an amplifier with holes poked in its speaker on ‘You Actually Obtained Me,’ giving the guitar its gloriously distorted sound — and which has reverberated throughout musical generations by way of genres akin to storage rock, punk and heavy steel.”
Another main figures in British rock additionally had their careers boosted by Talmy. In 1963, he employed legendary producer Glyn Johns as an engineer, and labored with Jimmy Web page as a session engineer earlier than Web page joined The Yardbirds in 1966 and co-founded Led Zeppelin in 1968.
In an announcement, Talmy’s archivist and historian Alec Palao claimed he “was actually a one-off. Even the briefest survey of probably the most important pop and rock recordings of the Sixties would wish to incorporate one thing Shel produced, and that in itself is an extremely significant legacy.”
Talmy’s Fb posts about his profession have been extremely well-liked amongst musicians and followers. His
Fb web page posted an announcement that notes “Shel thought the world of you, his FB followers and supporters, and to that finish, a while in the past he ready the next assertion that he would really like shared now – ideally with ‘You Actually Obtained Me,’ ‘My Technology,’ ‘Friday On My Thoughts’ or your selection of favorite ST manufacturing cranked within the background).”
It reads, partly: “Hello to all, and plenty of because of all of you who’ve been studying my rock tales for all this time, it has been enormously appreciated! Please observe, that when you’re studying this now, that is my last vignette, as I’m now not residing on this aircraft of existence, and have ‘moved on’ to wherever that could be.
“I might wish to suppose that I am completely having fun with my new ‘residence,’ and that the numerous rumors that there’s a massive working ‘studio within the sky’ are true, and that we’re, dare I say, making heavenly music! I’m additionally hoping that I’m at the moment engaged in renewing relationships with a ton of buddies and acquaintances, a lot of which return for many years.
“I’ve had a superb run, and I’m delighted it lasted so long as it did. I am additionally delighted that I’m informed I’ve a legacy that can final even longer. I stay up for assembly a few of you sooner or later who’re studying this, however LOL, do not hurry to get right here, I am not going wherever!”
Lou Donaldson, an influential American jazz saxophonist, died on Nov. 9, aged 98.
In its obituary,
The New York Instances calls him “an alto saxophonist who turned a part of the bedrock of the jazz scene and whose soulful, blues-steeped presence within the music endured undiminished for three-quarters of a century. He was a mainstay of the Blue Word report label on the top of its affect and energy,.”
“Donaldson recorded continuously as each a pacesetter and a sideman starting in 1952. He was a number one voice of the extra elemental fashion that got here to be referred to as ‘laborious bop,’ an evolution out of the bebop revolution wrought by his inspiration on the alto sax, Charlie Parker.”
Born in North Carolina, Donaldson studied the clarinet as a young person – all his siblings have been musicians – and performed in a marching band in school. In 1945 he was drafted into the US navy, the place he took up the alto saxophone and joined a navy band that additionally featured the celebrated swing altoist Willie Smith.
After the battle, he moved to New York Metropolis, and drew inspiration from the work of Charlie Parker. In its
obituary,The Guardian notes that Donaldson “heard the bluesily expressive depths within the new idiom higher than a lot of Parker’s younger imitators – his tone was incisive and fierce, his phrasing as emphatic and dramatic as a sermon, whereas he additionally had a classy grasp of the tactic’s harmonic complexities.”
“Donaldson was considered one of Charlie Parker’s most distinctive alto saxophone disciples when he first surfaced within the Fifties. The post-Parker alto saxophonists Cannonball Adderley and Donaldson hardly ever departed from the blues. Their work did a lot to encourage the ’60s soul-jazz motion – bebop with a preacher’s emphatic cry – and a jazz improvement that was important to the evolution of late Twentieth-century fusion and jazz-funk.
The Guardian provides that “Alongside his immense saxophone eloquence, Donaldson possessed a extremely entertaining strangled-parrot blues voice, and at gigs in his later years would recurrently ship his vocal occasion piece, ‘Whisky Drinkin’ Woman.’ He would then specific his gratitude to audiences with the phrases ‘glad y’all recognize classical singing.’
“Donaldson had his greatest hit with the soul-jazz anthem “Alligator Boogaloo” in 1967. He most likely stopped altering as a inventive jazz artist round this time, however it by no means mattered that he stayed the identical. His present had a rootsy bonhomie that stored it engagingly and unerringly on the street.”
The New York Instances stories that “Donaldson’s years at Blue Word yielded an awfully numerous catalog of recordings, together with seminal collaborations with the organist Jimmy Smith, starting in 1957. Their work collectively helped pioneer a brand new jazz style with surprising crossover reputation: the organ-sax combo. In 1967, Mr. Donaldson added a rising guitar virtuoso named George Benson to the combo for a Blue Word session below Mr. Donaldson’s personal identify, alongside the good Hammond B3 organ participant Lonnie Smith.
“That session generated the LP
Alligator Boogaloo, which turned a crossover hit: Its funky title observe cracked the Billboard Sizzling 100, a rarity for a jazz report label within the Sixties. Mr. Donaldson’s gross sales all through this era have been distinctive for a jazz musician.”
Starting within the Nineteen Nineties, his recordings turned a favorite supply of samples for the hip-hop trade. WRTI stories that “hip-hop DJ and producer Pete Rock began making frequent use of samples from Donaldson’s music, incorporating the horns from his 1970 observe ‘Pot Stomach’ right into a 1992 remix of Home of Ache’s ‘Soar Round.’
“Much more well-liked was Donaldson’s 1967 cowl of Bobbie Gentry’s ‘Ode to Billie Joe.’ Idris Muhammad’s drum beat from the tune is likely one of the most sampled parts in all of hip-hop, undergirding notable tracks by A Tribe Referred to as Quest, Lauryn Hill, Kanye West, Eminem and others.”
The Nationwide Endowment for the Arts named Donaldson a Jazz Grasp in 2012.
Roy Haynes, a pioneering jazz drummer who went on to grow to be one of the vital recorded percussionists in music historical past, died on Nov. 12, at age 99.
Born in Boston, Haynes started his musical profession within the early Nineteen Forties, changing into a full-time skilled drummer in 1945.
Billboardreports that “all through the last decade, he labored with the likes of saxophonist Lester Younger and carried out as a part of Charlie Parker’s quintet from 1949 to 1952. Haynes was additionally provided a job in Duke Ellington’s band in 1952, in the end turning it down as a result of a want of being in smaller bands which allowed extra room for musical expression.
“Haynes’ recorded output is a powerful one, boasting appearances as a sideman for names as revered and acclaimed as Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughan, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, Artwork Blakey, Ray Charles, Stan Getz, and numerous others earlier than the appearance of the Sixties. Alongside this work as a sideman, his output as a bandleader was equally prolific, together with his first report –
Busman’s Vacation – arriving in 1954.”
Haynes was a extremely embellished musician and earned large peer respect. He obtained his first Grammy Award nomination in 1988 within the Finest Jazz Instrumental Efficiency, Group for his work with Chick Corea. Over the following 19 years, he would take house two awards from his eight nominations.
In 2012, he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Recording Academy, with one other Lifetime Achievement Award coming from the Jazz Basis of America in 2019.
Different awards included the the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French authorities in 1996, and honorary doctorates from each the Berklee School of Music and the New England Conservatory. In 2004,
DownBeat journal inducted him into their Corridor of Fame, having being named of their readers and critics polls on 14 events.
Even in his ’80s and ’90s, Haynes maintained a touring and recording schedule. For his eighty fifth birthday, he performed a stretch of exhibits on the Blue Word jazz membership in Manhattan, the dates spiced with particular visitors like piano nice Chick Corea, who had engaged the drummer for his acclaimed 1968 album
Now He Sings, Now He Sobs.
Learn
DownBeat’s obituary right here.
Austin Roberts (born George Austin Robertson), a Grammy-winning Nashville singer/songwriter, died on Nov. 1, at age 79.
Larry Delaney of Cancountry informs that “He’s finest remembered for his 1970-’80s releases together with the Pop/Nation hit ‘Rocky.’ He was a Grammy award winner for co-writing the Lee Greenwood hit ‘I.O.U.’ His co-written songs have been recorded by Reba McEntire, Kenny Rogers, Dickey Lee, B.J. Thomas, Moe Bandy, Stressed Coronary heart and plenty of others.
“Austin Roberts had a number of Canadian connections. His co-written music, ‘He Would Be Sixteen, recorded by Michelle Wright, gained the CCMA’s Single and Video of The 12 months in 1993. Anne Murray recorded his composition ‘Come On Love,’ and his music ‘I am Drinkin’ Canada Dry,’ recorded by The Burrito Brothers; was co-written with Canadian-bred songwriter Johnny Cymbal.
Pete (Peter John) Sinfield, a British poet, lyricist and producer who co-founded King Crimson with guitarist-composer Robert Fripp and went on to contribute lyrics to songs by Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Celine Dion and Cher, died on Nov. 14, at age 80. No reason behind loss of life has been reported.
In its
obituary, Selection notes that “Sinfield’s whimsical, usually weird lyrics have been an ideal counterpart for the difficult, multi-genre music on King Crimson’s galvanizing 1969 debut Within the Court docket of the Crimson King, which is extensively considered the primary totally progressive rock album.
“He continued contributing to the fractious band’s ensuing albums into the early Seventies whereas additionally writing for erstwhile Crimson singer Greg Lake in his new band, the much more profitable prog-rock outfit Emerson, Lake & Palmer, in addition to Lake’s perennial solo vacation traditional, ‘I Consider in Father Christmas.’ He additionally performed keyboards for the group and helmed its psychedelic mild exhibits.
As a producer, Sinfield was finest identified for being on the helm of most notably behind the boards (and manned the Mellotron) for the self-titled debut album by pioneering avant-glam rockers Roxy Music and its first single, “Virginia Plain.” He additionally contributed mellotron to that album.
In 1973, Sinfield additionally recorded a solo album,
Nonetheless, described by Selection as “considered one of prog rock’s best misplaced albums.” He sang, performed twelve-string guitar and synthesizer, and even designed its cowl.”
Later in his profession, Sinfield’s talent as a lyricist was employed by such stars as Celine Dion and Cher. One in all his compositions for Celine Dion, the hit ”
Assume Twice,” gained the esteemed Ivor Novello award for Finest Tune Musically and Lyrically.
