Obituaries: folk

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28 January 2014

Pete Seeger, US Folk Singer, Songwriter and Political Activist, Dies at 94

http://post-humous.blogspot.com/2014/01/pete-seeger-us-folk-singer-songwriter.html

Legendary American folk singer and political activist Pete Seeger has died at the age of 94.

His family said Seeger passed away Monday of natural causes at New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

Seeger was the son of a musicologist who introduced him to rural American folk music while he was a student at a Connecticut boarding school. He later met and befriended two other legendary American folk singers: the black blues musician Lead Belly, and Woody Guthrie, with whom he toured across the country performing at benefits for labor activists in 1940.

After serving in World War II, he founded the Weavers, a quartet that achieved wide popularity in the early 1950s with such songs as Kisses Sweeter Than Wine, If I Had a Hammer, and Goodnight, Irene, sparking a revival in American folk music.

However, the group's success ended after Seeger was cited for his earlier ties to the Communist Party. He was barred from performing on television and eventually called before the House Un-American Activities Committee, where he refused to answer questions about his political activities. He was tried and convicted for contempt of Congress and sentenced to jail, but the sentenced was eventually overturned.

Seeger continued to draw huge audiences at college campuses and small nightclubs, and he took part in such causes as civil rights and environmentalism. His arrangement of We Shall Overcome, which had its roots as a gospel song, became the anthem of the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Seeger also wrote such popular songs as Turn, Turn, Turn and Where Have All the Flowers Gone? He earned numerous awards and accolades late in his career, including a Grammy Award in 1993 for lifetime achievement. He was also named a Kennedy Center honoree in 1994, and inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 as an early influence.

In 2009, he performed at a concert staged at the Lincoln Memorial in celebration of President Barack Obama's first inauguration.

25 April 2013

Remembering Richie Havens

by Katherine Cole

Folk-rocker Richie Havens, who died Monday of a heart attack, will be remembered for many things, among them a smooth singing voice, standing six-and-a-half-feet tall, and singing at President Bill Clinton’s first inauguration. But the most famous of his many lauded concert appearances happened by accident.

Richie Havens’ performance at Woodstock in 1969 catapulted him into music history, but the lanky, soulful folk singer wasn’t supposed to open the festival - he was scheduled to play fifth that day. Plans changed when the opening band, Sweetwater, got caught in traffic. Havens and his band had traveled to the upstate New York festival site by helicopter, so they were ready to hit the stage when organizers asked Havens to go on instead.

In his book about the festival, producer Michael Lang said he chose Havens as his “emergency opener” “because of his calm but powerful demeanor”. His performance went overtime because the next act was stuck in traffic, too. This led Richie Havens to improvise what became one of the most iconic moments of the Woodstock Festival: his performance of “Freedom/Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.”

Havens later explained how he came up with his most famous song. He thought back to the start of the festival and hearing “freedom” over and over again in the crowd. Picking up the chant, Havens repeated the word, and then began singing an old gospel song that he’d learned as a child. The improvised medley was a highlight of the Woodstock movie and cemented Havens’ place in music history.

The oldest of nine children, Havens was raised in the poor Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York. As a child, he dreamed of growing up to be a surgeon, but set off on a musical path as a teenager. Forming a gospel group in high school, he then landed in New York’s Greenwich Village folk clubs at 17. He stood out from the other young singers, not just because of his height, but his ethnicity - Richie Havens was African-American in a largely white folk music scene.

He recorded two albums on small labels before signing with Bob Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman. He then joined a larger label and went on to tour for more than 40 years, releasing close to 30 albums.

While he was a good songwriter, Richie Havens was also an exceptional song interpreter. In interviews and at shows he’d tell of spending three days learning Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” repeatedly practicing the song in a stairwell. One night, a man stopped him and said it was the best version he’d ever heard. Havens always ended the story and started the song by saying: “that’s how I first met Bob Dylan.”

In 2008, Richie Havens released his final studio album, “Nobody Left To Crown.”

Havens died April 22 at the age of 72. He embodied the spirit of the 1960s and carried that message of peace and love well into the 21st century.

23 April 2013

US Folk Musician Richie Havens Dead at 72

American folk musician Richie Havens, who was the first performer at the Woodstock music festival, has died.

His family said Havens died of a heart attack in New Jersey Monday. He was 72.

Havens opened the three-day 1969 Woodstock Festival with the song Freedom, and performed for three hours. The concert was the turning point of his career.

He also performed at Bill Clinton's presidential Inauguration in 1993.

Havens released his debut album Mixed Bag in 1967 and went on to release more than 25 albums. Havens' last album was 2008's Nobody Left to Crown.

His website said he had kidney surgery in 2010 and that he never recovered enough to perform concerts the way he used to.

(Photo of Richie Havens in 1974 courtesy of William Morris Agency.)

31 May 2012

American Folk Legend Doc Watson Dies

by Mary Morningstar

American folk and roots music performer Doc Watson died on May 29 of complications from abdominal surgery.

For more than five decades, Watson entertained audiences around the world with an eclectic repertoire that included elements of folk, blues, Country, bluegrass, rockabilly, and even jazz. A master of the contemporary flat-pick guitar style, the eight-time Grammy Award winner influenced generations of musicians in rock, country and folk.

Born Arthel Lane Watson in Deep Gap, North Carolina, his first love was the traditional music of the Blue Ridge Mountain region. In his early childhood, he contracted an illness which caused permanent blindness, a handicap that directed his interests toward music. Watson was also inspired by his father, a multi-instrumentalist, who bought his first harmonica and taught him to play the banjo. He got his first lessons on the guitar while attending the School For The Blind in Raleigh, North Carolina. Watson loved to tell the story of how that experience earned him his own guitar.

"My father was sitting at the breakfast table drinking his last cup of coffee before he went to work and I was fooling with a borrowed guitar that one of my brothers had there," Watson recalled. "And he said, 'Son, if you learn a song on that by the time I get back this evening from work, we'll buy you one on Saturday.' Well, what he didn't know was a friend of mine at the school I was going to over in Raleigh had taught me a few chords and I could pick and sing that thing when he got back. And he said, 'I guess I'll have to keep my word.'"

At age 17, Doc Watson made his performing debut at a fiddler's convention in Boone, North Carolina. That led to appearances at other local functions and on various radio programs. Doc's concerts were often called "short courses in the history of American music." His popularity grew in the early 1960's, and in 1964, reached a national level following a performance at the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island. That same year, he was signed to Vanguard Records. He once said his ultimate goal was to be a recording artist.

"I always wanted to be professional enough to do some records," he explained. " I never thought about having any sort of countrywide or worldwide recognition in the music world. My dad put me to work when I was 13 instead of letting me sit in the corner on the other end of the saw and that started me. And my sweet little wife Rosalee took my hand and helped me with enough courage to get out and make a living."

In 1965, Doc Watson added his 15-year-old son Merle to his act. For the next two decades, Merle's slide and acoustic guitar accompaniment were featured on several albums and at nearly all of his live shows. At age 36, Merle died in a farming accident, a tragedy that led to Doc's semi-retirement in the late-1980's. In 1988, Watson honored his son’s memory by founding the annual roots music festival MerleFest.

Although he chose to spend less time on the road, Doc continued to record in the 1990's. The bond he felt with his audience transcended into the recording studio.

"You think about 'Well, if I do this well, a lot of people of going to buy this record and they're going to listen to it.' You've got an audience there though you don't see them and you can't reach out and shake hands with them. They're there in the future as you will. You know if you do the record well, once people begin to hear it, they'll buy it and that's your audience," he said.

In 1995, Doc returned to his musical roots with the album, Docabilly. Some of the artists he influenced, including Marty Stuart, Duane Eddy and guit-steel player Junior Brown, were featured on the critically-acclaimed collection of 1950's rockabilly tunes. Two of Doc’s albums crossed over to the Billboard 200 chart, including his 2003 Grammy-nominated release, The Three Pickers. The album also featured Earl Scruggs and Ricky Skaggs.

Doc Watson was awarded the National Medal of Arts from President Bill Clinton in 1997. In 2004, he received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Photo by boonejag75: Doc Watson at Sugar Grove Music Festival in 2009.

01 January 2012

Music: Final Exits of 2011

10 October 2011

Final Exits, 1-7 October 2011

Bert Jansch performing at the Green Man Festival, 21 August 2006. Photo by Chris Barber from Dartford, England.

Obituaries for 1-7 October 2011

1
* Hans Christian Alsvik, 75, Norwegian television presenter. (Norwegian)
* David Bedford, 74, British composer and musician.
* Len Castle, 86, New Zealand potter.
* Ruby Langford Ginibi, 77, Australian author and Aboriginal historian.
* Paulos Mantovanis, 65, Cypriot Orthodox hierarch, Metropolitan of Kyrenia (since 1994). (Greek)
* Sholom Rivkin, 85, American rabbi, last chief rabbi of St. Louis and the United States.
* Johnny Schmitz, 90, American baseball player (Chicago Cubs, Brooklyn Dodgers, Washington Senators).
* Sven Tumba, 80, Swedish ice hockey player (world champion 1953, 1957 and 1962), footballer and golfer, prostate cancer.

2
* Vasily Aleksanyan, 39, Russian lawyer and businessman, Executive Vice President of Yukos, complications from AIDS.
* Don Lapre, 47, American television pitchman, suicide.
* Mark Mendel, 60s, Romanian born Israeli-Jamaican football coach.
* Taha Muhammad Ali, 80, Palestinian poet.
* Peter Przygodda, 69, German film editor, cancer. (German)
* John Romonosky, 82, American baseball player (St. Louis Cardinals, Washington Senators).
* François Abu Salem, 60, French-born Palestinian actor and director.
* Cindy Shatto, 54, Canadian Olympic diver, lung cancer.
* Pavlos Tassios, 69, Greek film director. (Greek)
* Piero Weiss, 83, Italian pianist and author, pneumonia.
* Moshe Wertman, 87, Israeli politician.

3
* Kay Armen, 95, American singer, actress and composer.
* Argyris Fatouros, 79, Greek law professor. (Greek)
* Mikko Laine, 30, Finnish rock musician, truck accident.
* Aden Meinel, 88, American astronomer and optical scientist.
* David I. Mitchell, 79, American set designer (Annie), cancer.
* Jim Neal, 81, American basketball player (Syracuse Nationals, Baltimore Bullets).
* Arthur C. Nielsen, Jr., 92, American businessman (ACNielsen), Parkinson's disease.
* Rollin Post, 81, American television reporter.

4
* Doris Belack, 85, American actress (Law & Order, One Life to Live, Tootsie), natural causes.
* Yelena Chernykh, 32, Russian actress, traffic collision. (Russian)
* Kenneth H. Dahlberg, 94, American businessman and World War II fighter ace, natural causes.
* Diana Gribble, 69, Australian publisher (McPhee Gribble), cancer.
* Ralph Hodgin, 96, American baseball player (Boston Bees, Chicago White Sox).
* Dustin Kellogg, 18, American baseball player, traffic collision.
* Hanan Porat, 67, Israeli rabbi, educator and politician, cancer.
* Shmuel Shilo, 81, Israeli actor and director, cancer.
* Aleksandr Yegorov, 59, Russian actor, traffic collision. (Russian)
* Valentina Yudina, 52, Russian actress, traffic collision. (Russian)

5
* Níver Arboleda, 43, Colombian footballer, heart attack. (Spanish)
* Derrick Bell, 80, American law professor (Harvard University), originated critical race theory, carcinoid cancer.
* Graham Dilley, 52, English cricketer, cancer.
* Enver Faja, 77, Albanian architect and diplomat, after long illness.
* Peter Jaks, 45, Swiss Olympic ice hockey player, suicide by train.
* Bert Jansch, 67, Scottish folk guitarist, singer and songwriter (Pentangle), cancer.
* Steve Jobs, 56, American computer entrepreneur and inventor, co-founder of Apple Inc., pancreatic cancer.
* Achilleas Karagiozopoulos, 56, Greek politician, cancer. (Greek)
* Charles Napier, 75, American actor (The Silence of the Lambs, The Blues Brothers).
* Fred Shuttlesworth, 89, American civil rights leader.
* Gökşin Sipahioğlu, 84, Turkish photographer. (French).
* Sarkis Soghanalian, 82, Turkish-born Armenian arms dealer.

6
* Diane Cilento, 78, Australian actress (Tom Jones, The Wicker Man), cancer.
* Birgit Rosengren, 98, Swedish actress. (Swedish)
* Igor Shmakov, 26, Russian actor, leukemia.
* Neil Street, 80, Australian speedway rider.

7
* Zaheer Ahmad, 63, Pakistani-born American doctor, brain hemorrhage.
* Ramiz Alia, 85, Albanian politician, First Secretary of the Party of Labour (1985–1991); President (1991–1992), lung complications.
* Julien Bailleul, 23, French footballer.
* George Baker, 80, English actor (I, Claudius, The Ruth Rendell Mysteries), pneumonia following a stroke.
* Fernando Charrier, 80, Italian Roman Catholic prelate, Bishop of Alessandria della Paglia (1989–2007).
* Charles Cuprill Oppenheimer, 95, Puerto Rican general. (Spanish)
* Andrew Laszlo, 85, Hungarian cinematographer (First Blood, The Warriors, Newsies).
* Neoklis Lechoudis, 55, Greek basketball player and coach, traffic collision. (Greek)
* Gianni Musy, 80, Italian movie dubber. (Italian)
* Milan Puskar, 77, American pharmacist, co-founder of Mylan, cancer.
* Julio Mario Santo Domingo, 87, Colombian businessman (SABMiller). (Spanish)
* Mishaal al-Tammo, 53, Syrian politician, shot.
* Avner Treinin, 83, Israeli poet and chemist. (Hebrew)
* Phil Walker, 67, British newspaper editor.

27 April 2011

Remembering Hazel Dickens

Remembering Hazel Dickens
Katherine Cole, VOA
Washington
27 April 2011

Trailblazing bluegrass and folk singer-songwriter Hazel Dickens recently died at the age of 76. Dickens was a performer whose childhood in a West Virginia coal mining town led her to become a labor activist and inspired a life-long musical career.

“It’s Hard to Tell The Singer From The Song” is the title track to Hazel Dickens' 1987 solo CD. Many of Hazel’s songs, like “They’ll Never Keep Us Down,” are anthems to working men and women, with the plight of non-unionized workers being a subject close to her heart, as was the coal mining country that she grew up in.

One of Hazel Dickens' most famous is “Black Lung,” written for a brother who died of the disease. Black lung is the common name for any lung disease developing from breathing coal dust.

Hazel Dickens grew up the eighth of 11 children in a poor mining family in West Virginia. Poverty forced her to leave the family home and move to Baltimore, Maryland, where she worked in factories alongside her sister and two brothers.

In a VOA interview several years ago, Hazel said the four attended music gatherings in their rare free time. At one, she met Mike Seeger, the younger brother of folk legend Pete Seeger, and they soon formed a band with her two brothers.

Over the next few years, Hazel became a regular part of the Baltimore and Washington music scene, playing and singing in several bands.

In the early 1960s, she teamed up with Alice Gerrard, and the two spent hours at the United States Library of Congress, researching early folk songs. They recorded only two albums together, but countless female musicians cite Hazel and Alice as influences and continue to perform their songs like “Won’t You Come and Sing For Me.”

Hazel Dickens’ solo career began with the soundtrack to an Academy Award-winning documentary film about a violent miner’s strike. “Harlan County USA” is a very powerful film about a 13-month strike, and it highlights the central role women played. Hazel has four songs on the soundtrack, including “They’ll Never Keep Us Down.”

Songs like that one are a reason that Hazel Dickens was called the “voice of the working class.” While many come from her own life, Hazel’s songs are ones that many people, not just those working down deep in coal mines or in factories can identify with.

Hazel Dickens lived in Washington for many years and, despite bouts of ill health, performed at the South by Southwest music conference just a month before her death. She received many honors and accolades over her long career, including membership in the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame, a lifetime achievement award from the Folk Alliance International,and on April 16 of this year Hazel was given the Washington Monument award by the D.C. Bluegrass Union.

26 April 2011

Singer Phoebe Snow of 'Poetry Man' Fame Dies

Singer Phoebe Snow of 'Poetry Man' Fame Dies
Tuesday, 26 April 2011

U.S. singer-songwriter Phoebe Snow, best known for her 1975 smash hit “Poetry Man,” has died.

Snow's manager said she died of complications from a stroke she suffered last year.

The New York-born Snow was widely known as a folk guitarist who also was adept at blues and jazz.

She dropped out of show business at the height of her fame in the mid 1970s to care for her daughter, who was born with severe brain damage.

Snow occasionally would return to the spotlight to make albums, do concert tours, and record television commercials.

She was one of former president Bill Clinton's favorite singers, and performed for him several times at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland.