Remembrance

Robert Gordon, a fixture on the ’70s New York City downtown club scene who resuscitated rockabilly music, died on October 18, 2022. He was 75.

Mark Lanegan, an integral part of the grunge scene of the ’80s and ’90s, died at his home in Killarney, Ireland on February 22 at the age of 57. Lanegan first became prominent as the lead singer [...]

Meat Loaf—real name Marvin Lee Aday, “but nobody ever calls me that”—died on January 20, 2022. He was 74. His Bat out of Hell albums were perhaps the most grandiose, bombastic, [...]

Graeme Edge, drummer and co-founder of the Moody Blues, died on Novermber 11, 2021, at the age of 80. Described by frontman Justin Hayward as “one of the great characters of the music business,” [...]

Commander Cody, alias pianist and vocalist George Frayne, died September 26, 2021, at age 77, after a long battle with esophageal cancer. The crazy Commander was a fixture on the American music [...]

Paddy Moloney, the leprechaun-like founder and indefatigable guiding spirit of the Chieftains—the world’s most popular exponents of traditional Irish music—died October 12, 2021, at the age of [...]

Lee “Scratch” Perry, one of the most influential forces of Jamaican music, died at the age of 85 on August 29, 2021.

Nanci Griffith, a Grammy-winning singer, guitarist and songwriter, died on August 13, 2021. She was 68. Griffith emerged from the same generation of folk/country stars as Lyle Lovett and Steve [...]

R.I.P. Chuck E. Weiss, who died on July 19 at 76 after a long illness. The Denver native moved to L.A. in the late ’70s, living at West Hollywood’s Tropicana Motel with Tom Waits and Rickie Lee [...]

Rusty Young, a founding member of Poco and the most adept and imaginative steel guitar player in the country-rock genre, died on April 14 of a heart attack at the age of 75.