On June 25, 2009, Michael Joseph Jackson died aged 50. He was singer, songwriter, record producer, dancer, and actor, named the “King of Pop” and regarded as one of the most important artists in the history of the popular music and culture. His 1982 album “Thriller” is the best-selling album of all time and the video clips for his songs “Beat It”, “Billie Jean” and “Thriller” turned down the racial barriers and transformed the music videos into an art form. Jackson is the most awarded artists in the history of the modern music – he was inducted into the “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame”, he was inducted into the “Songwriters Hall of Fame” and in to the “Dance Hall of Fame” as the first and only dancer from pop and rock music. He is multiple winner of “Guinness World Records”, he won thirteen “Grammy Awards”, the “Grammy Legend Award”, the “Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award”, twenty six “American Music Awards”, he was voted the “Artist of the Century” and “Artist of the 1980s”. In his solo career, Jackson had thirteen number-one singles in the US, he is the only artist to have top ten singles in the “Billboard Hot 100” and sold more than four hundred millions records worldwide. For his humanitarian job and activities, in 2000, Jackson was recognized by the “Guinness World Records” as the most humanitarian entertainer in the history, supporting 39 various charities.
Bobby Bland
On June 23, 2013, Robert Calvin “Bobby” Bland died aged 73. He was singer, created his own recognizable sound, mixture of gospel, blues and R&B. Referred to as “lion of the blues” and “among the great storytellers of blues and soul music”, he was inducted into the “Blues Hall of Fame” in 1981, the “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame” in 1992, and received the “Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award” in 1997.
Peter Laughner
On June 22, 1977, Peter Laughner, died aged 24. He was musician (guitar), singer and songwriter, described by Richie Unterberger as “probably the single biggest catalyst in the birth of Cleveland’s alternative rock scene in the mid 1970s.” Laughner was the lead force in number of bands, including “Mr. Charlie”, “Cinderella Backstreet”, “Peter & The Wolves”, “The Blue Drivers and Friction”, but he is best known for his work with “Rocket From The Tombs” and the early work of “Pere Ubu”. He also wrote regularly for the magazine “Creem”.
John Lee Hooker
On June 21, 2001, John Lee Hooker died aged 84. He was musician (guitar), singer and songwriter, regarded as one of the most important blues artists ever. He rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues and became world-famous by his endless driving rhythm boogie style, but he also incorporated other elements, including talking blues and early North Mississippi Hill country blues. In his career that stretched across more than half a century, Hooker composed big number of blues classics including “Boogie Chillen'” (1948), “Crawling King Snake” (1949), “Dimples” (1956), “Boom Boom” (1962), and “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” (1966).
The Blues Brothers
On June 16, 1980, “Universal Pictures” released the movie “The Blues Brothers”. Movie script was written by Dan Aykroyd and John Landis, produced by Robert K. Weiss and directed John Landis. Main roles were played by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, and Carrie Fisher, Kathleen Freeman, Henry Gibson and John Candy were part of the cast. Big number of music artists took part in the movie including James Brown, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Big Walter Horton, Pinetop Perkins, John Lee Hooker, Steve Cropper, Donald Dunn, Lou Marini, Tom Malone, Alan Rubin, Willie Hall, Matt Murphy and Murphy Dunne.
Henry Mancini
On June 14, 1994, Enrico Nicola “Henry” Mancini, died aged 70. He was composer, arranger and conductor, best known for his movie and television music. His most popular work is “The Pink Panther Theme”, main score to the movie series “Pink Panther”, and the theme to the “Peter Gunn” television series. He achieved a long lasting collaboration with the famous movie director Blake Edwards. For his work he has won four “Academy Awards”, “Golden Globe”, twenty “Grammy Awards” and a posthumous “Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award” in 1995.
Ornette Coleman
On June 11, 2015, Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman, died aged 85. He was musician (saxophone, violin, trumpet), regarded as one of the most important and influential artists in the history of jazz music. Coleman was the major innovator of the free jazz movement in the 60’s, and invented the name “free jazz” with a name of his album. His third studio album from 1959, “The shape of the jazz to come” is regarded as one of the most important albums in the history of modern jazz.
James Last
On June 9, 2015, Hans Last aka James Last (also known as “Hansi”) died aged 86. He was composer and big band leader, best known for his “happy music”, an upbeat, easy-listening covers of classical music, polka, rock, pop and soul hits with his big band. His work was denied by the music critics but the audience loved his music, especially in United Kingdom and in his native Germany. In his five decades long career, Last released more than 190 albums and sold more than 80 millions album copies worldwide, becoming the most successful commercial big band leader after the second World War Two.
Ray Charles
On June 10, 2004, Ray Charles Robinson died aged 74. He was a singer, songwriter, musician, and composer, regarded as one of the most important artists in the history of modern music, referred to as “The Genius”. Charles is important not only as a pioneer in combining rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues into soul music but he also played the main role in the racial integration of country and pop music – he was one of the first African-American musicians who gained artistic control by a mainstream record company. In 2004, “Rolling Stone” magazine ranked Charles at number ten on their list of the “100 Greatest Artists of All Time” and number two on the 2008 list of the “100 Greatest Singers of All Time”.
Frank Sinatra: The only true genius in show business.
Billy Joel: This may sound like sacrilege, but I think Ray Charles was more important than Elvis Presley.
Henry Pleasants (music critic and musicologists): Sinatra, and Bing Crosby before him, had been masters of words. Ray Charles is a master of sounds. His records disclose an extraordinary assortment of slurs, glides, turns, shrieks, wails, breaks, shouts, screams and hollers, all wonderfully controlled, disciplined by inspired musicianship, and harnessed to ingenious subtleties of harmony, dynamics and rhythm… It is either the singing of a man whose vocabulary is inadequate to express what is in his heart and mind or of one whose feelings are too intense for satisfactory verbal or conventionally melodic articulation. He can’t tell it to you. He can’t even sing it to you. He has to cry out to you, or shout to you, in tones eloquent of despair—or exaltation. The voice alone, with little assistance from the text or the notated music, conveys the message.
Awards and honors
- In 1979 – induction into the Georgia State Music Hall of Fame. Charles’ version of “Georgia on my mind” was also made the official state song for Georgia.
- In 1981 – star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame,
- In 1986 – induction to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
- In 1986 – awarded with the Kennedy Center Honors
- In 1987 – awarded with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
- In 1991- induction to the Rhythm & Blues Foundation
- In 1991 – awarded with the George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement
- In 1993 – awarded the National Medal of Arts.
- In 1998 – awarded with the Polar Music Prize
- In 2004 – induction to the National Black Sports & Entertainment Hall of Fame
- In 2003 – awarded an honorary degree by Dillard University
- In 2005 – The Grammy Awards were dedicated to Ray Charles
- In 2010 – Performing arts center at Morehouse College was named after Ray Charles
- In 2013 – The United States Postal Service issued a forever stamp honoring Ray Charles as part of it Musical Icons
Billy Preston
On June 6, 2006, William Everett “Billy” Preston, died aged 59. He was musician (keyboards, Hammond organ), Grammy-winning artist, recorded and performed with some of the greatest names in the modern music history, including the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Sam Cooke, Nat King Cole, Little Richard, Ray Charles, George Harrison, Elton John, Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan. Preston also had a successful solo career, his best known songs include “That’s the way God planned it”, “Outa-Space”, “Will it go round in circles”, “Space Race”, and “Nothing from nothing”.
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