2014 Off Topic Celebrity Dead Pool - Now under New Management

[-Jrabbit]

RIP Bobby Keys, longtime saxophonist for the Rolling Stones.



Also a session player on a lot of classic rock albums. Cirrhosis, age 70.

[-Jrabbit]

RIP to a legend.

Canadiens Legend And Hockey Hall Of Famer Jean Beliveau Dead At 83

AP | December 03, 2014 at 01:21 AM
MONTREAL (AP) — It is hard to imagine a classier hockey player, on and off the ice, than Jean Beliveau. A supremely skilled center who spent 20 seasons with the Montreal Canadiens during his Hall of Fame career, Beliveau died Tuesday at 83. The team confirmed his death.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Clive Palmer, founder member of the Incredible String Band has died.

Clive Palmer, who has died aged 71, was a founding member of the mid-60s avant-garde folk group the Incredible String Band, and later brought his songwriting and instrumental talents to Clive’s Original Band. He was an accomplished banjo player, initially specialising in the English finger-picking “classic”style that emerged in the late 19th century, but his 1967 virtuoso recording, Banjoland, considered too esoteric at the time, had to wait until 2005 before it was released.

In the early 60s, Palmer had formed a duo with Robin Williamson, with the rather unimaginative stage name Robin and Clive, and they toured folk clubs in Scotland and northern England. They recorded a track on the Decca album Edinburgh Folk Festival in 1963. Robin and Clive’s repertoire was mainly Scottish traditional song which, as the US record producer Joe Boyd (who visited Edinburgh on his voyage of discovery of the British folk scene) later said, sounded as if it had taken “a journey to the Appalachians and back via Morocco and Bulgaria”.

By the time Boyd returned six months later to sign them for the US Elektra label, they had expanded into a trio, with the addition of Mike Heron, and changed their name to the Incredible String Band. The new name was accompanied by a change in musical direction – original songs with American and Scottish roots. Their debut, eponymous album was released in 1966 and became Melody Maker’s folk album of the year; Palmer’s song Empty Pocket Blues had enduring popularity.

Shortly after the album’s release, Palmer hitchhiked along the hippy trail to Afghanistan and India. Williamson travelled to Morocco, but soon returned and, in Palmer’s absence, he and Heron reformed the Incredible String Band as a duo.

Palmer eventually returned and – moving to Cornwall – joined the Famous Jug Band. With this new outfit, Palmer recorded the album Sunshine Possibilities (1969), which included one of his best-known songs, A Leaf Must Fall. History repeated itself when Palmer left soon after the album’s release, this time because of artistic differences.

With John Bidwell and Mick Bennett, Palmer next formed Clive’s Original Band. The thriving Cornish folk scene had attracted singers such as Ralph McTell, who recommended the band to his manager, Jo Lustig, and Lustig suggested the trio’s name. Palmer provided most of the tunes for their two albums, Spirit of Love (1971) and the gloriously titled Moyshe McStiff and the Tartan Lancers of the Sacred Heart (1972).

They toured as support to the folk band Pentangle, but big concert venues did not suit their intimate style. The acoustic, melancholic sound of Clive’s Original Band became dated when the alternative folk scene moved into folk rock through the 70s, and they disbanded.

Palmer was born in Edmonton, north London, the fourth child of William and Violet. With his mother and siblings he took part in local amateur dramatics and musical shows, and he sang in public at the age of eight with the tap-dancing Foster-Miller Dance Troupe. His brother gave him a guitar, which he swapped for a banjo and, at school, Clive started his own skiffle group. He contracted polio as a boy, and walked with a limp for the rest of his life.

School life was therefore disrupted and he left at 15, eventually enrolling at Hornsey Art College. He sang in coffee bars and took lessons from the banjo ace Alfred Lloyd, but left college without completing his course to busk with the acoustic guitarist Wizz Jones in Soho, Cornwall and Paris, before moving to Edinburgh. There he shared a flat with the musicians Bert Jansch and Williamson, with whom he soon formed Robin and Clive.

After the breakup of Clive’s Original Band, Palmer trained as a musical instrument technician, worked in a variety of jobs in Cornwall and continued to play in several local bands. A solo album, Just Me, was released on a German label in 1978.

Palmer’s brief involvement in the Incredible String Band was over before its more famous mystical and psychedelic phase, but he toured with Williamson again in the 90s, before they hooked up with Heron to revive the band’s original lineup. Williamson left in 2003, but Heron and Palmer continued to tour the UK and the US before disbanding again in 2006.

A biography Empty Pocket Blues: the Life and Music of Clive Palmer, by Grahame Hood, was published in 2008. Back in Cornwall, Palmer recorded several new albums, including two with the Clive Palmer Band. Palmer’s music was always unconventional and his musical influences were eclectic, but as a performer he was not interested in commercial success: making music was what he loved doing.

He is survived by his wife, Gina.

[Grandpa Troll]

RIP to a legend.

Always thought he was an awesome player and leader!

R.I.P.!

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

OK, this is one I'm really sad to hear. The Small Faces were my favourite British band of the 60s.

Ian McLagan, keyboard player for the Small Faces and the Faces, has died aged 69, due to complications from a stroke suffered earlier this week.

"It is with great sadness and eternal admiration that we report the passing of [a] rock and roll icon," read a statement on his official website.

McLagan, known as Mac, played on such memorable Small Faces tracks as Lazy Sunday and Itchycoo Park in the 1960s.

The band became the Faces when Rod Stewart and Ron Wood joined in 1969.

McLagan went on to record and perform with the Rolling Stones and also worked with Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen.

The Hounslow-born musician was about to embark on a North American tour, supporting label mate Nick Lowe, at the time of his death in his adopted home town of Austin, Texas.

"I am completely devastated by this shocking news and I know this goes for Ronnie and Rod as well," said Small Faces and Faces member Kenney Jones.

Steward added: "I'm absolutely devastated. Ian McLagan embodied the true spirit of the Faces.

"Last night I was at a charity do, Mick Hucknall was singing I'd Rather Go Blind, and Ron Wood texted to say Ian had passed. It was as if his spirit was in the room. I'll miss you mate."

McLagan's manager, Ken Kushnick, remembered him as "a beloved friend to so many people and a true rock 'n' roll spirit".

As a member of Small Faces, McLagan was known for his dexterity on the Hammond Organ and Wurlitzer electric piano.

With the Faces in the 1970s, he had hits in both the UK and US with such songs as Stay With Me and Cindy Incidentally.

When Stewart departed to go solo and Wood left to join the Stones, the group continued as the Small Faces, before disbanding in 1978.

The Faces reformed at the end of the 2000s, with Mick Hucknall filling in for Stewart, and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012.

According to the announcement on his website, McLagan had a stroke on Tuesday and died the following day "surrounded by family and friends".

Sir Paul McCartney told BBC Radio 4's John Wilson the keyboard player was "a lot of fun".

"We would see each other at parties in the early days. He was a great guy, a great player and admired by many people.

"I was always very flattered that he admired my song, Maybe I'm Amazed, so much that the Faces did it. We'll miss him."

Singer Billy Bragg tweeted "British rock has lost one of its greatest players", while Hucknall paid his own tribute on the Simply Red twitter feed.

"Ian McLagan will not be resting in peace," the band's message read. "He'll be rocking whichever house he chose to be in. Bless his soul."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8i0xjJwils

I met him about 15 years ago, when he was playing with Billy Bragg. Lovely little guy.

[molly bloom]

Bring up the bodies :


Geoffrey Clarke, sculptor

Vic Ash, jazz clarinettist

Style Scott, drummer and founder member of Roots Radics

Brian Lemon, jazz pianist, arranger and bandleader

The Spaceape, dubstep M.C.

Alvin Stardust, one-time glam rock star, television presenter and actor

Misty Upham, Native American actor

Rene Burri, photographer

John Holt, reggae singer

Lynda Bellingham, well-loved British actor


Tim Hauser, founder of Manhattan Transfer

Gabrielle Reidy, Irish actor

Barrie Marmion, microbiologist

Marian Seldes, Broadway actor

Joe Plaskett, Canadian painter

Stuart Gordon, violinist

Anna Morpurgo Davies, historical linguist

Morris Lurie, Australian writer

John McIlwaine, forensic archaeologist

Christopher Hogwood, keyboard player, musicologist and one of the leading lights of the Early Music Revival

David Wynne, sculptor

Angus Lennie, Scottish actor

[Uncle Sparky]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]177037[/ATTACH]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/16/showbi...d-big-red-dog/

Norman Bridwell, children's author, has died

[SlowwHand]

Do y'all have any of these people or even think someone else might; or is this just end of year regurgitation obituaries? My HS gf's mother died. She was married to a suit at HUD and ran with the Bush family. Should I have listed her? Probably not.

[-Jrabbit]

I'm more concerned with 2015. Two weeks away.
We need a commish.

[ColdWizard]

Do y'all have any of these people or even think someone else might; or is this just end of year regurgitation obituaries? My HS gf's mother died. She was married to a suit at HUD and ran with the Bush family. Should I have listed her? Probably not.

These threads have become the traditional place to put deaths of all but the most noteworthy of deaths, who still tend to get their own threads, regardless if anyone has them in the Pool.

I'm more concerned with 2015. Two weeks away.
We need a commish.

We have one, he's just been disappointingly slow at getting the new thread up. He keeps double checking the number of initial posts and their contents, and just generally dithering around. Also, the 2013 Dead Pool signup thread wasn't posted until the 15th, so it's not tragically late yet.

[molly bloom]

Acker Bilk, jazz musician

Lynsey de Paul, composer and musician

[-Jrabbit]

Thanks for stepping up, CW!

[-Jrabbit]

Just for the record: Joe Cocker, 70, lung cancer.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Query for anyone who has ever been in the lead in the run-up to the year end- is it normal to start researching occult rituals aimed at warding off death in others? The tension is unbelievable.

[SlowwHand]

I will never put Zombie Gabor on a list again.