Charlie Daniels R.I.P | October 28, 1936 – July 6, 2020

Charlie Daniels, shown here in 1997, has died at age 83.

Brownie Harris/Getty Images

Charlie Daniels, Southern Rock Pioneer and Fiddle Great, Dead at 83

Leader of the Charlie Daniels Band was known for hits like “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” and for his session work on Bob Dylan’s ‘Nashville Skyline’

By STEPHEN L. BETTS

Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Charlie Daniels, who played bass and guitar on Bob Dylan’s 1969 Nashville Skyline LP and would go on to pioneer the burgeoning Southern rock movement with his namesake Charlie Daniels Band, died Monday at 83. His publicist confirmed Daniels’ death from a hemorrhagic stroke to Rolling Stone.

With his fiery fiddle at the forefront of much of his recorded output, the leader of the Charlie Daniels Band paved the way for the mainstream country-rock success of that group and others, including Alabama and Lynyrd Skynyrd, and crossed over into the pop charts with his best-known song, 1979’s Grammy-winning “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” A country chart-topper about a fiddle contest between a boy named Johnny and Satan, the song also spent a pair of weeks at Number Three on Billboard‘s Hot 100.

Charles Edward Daniels was born October 28th, 1936, in the seacoast town of Wilmington, North Carolina, the only child of teenagers William and LaRue Daniel — the “s” at the end of his name was the result of a mistake on his birth certificate. Two weeks after Daniels started elementary school, his family moved to Valdosta, Georgia, bouncing between there and Elizabethtown, North Carolina, until finally moving back to Wilmington. A feverish bout with childhood measles forced Daniels to wear eyeglasses for most of his life, making him a target of school bullies, but the youngster, who grew up on Saturday matinees of Western films and Saturday nights spent listening to the Grand Ole Opry, would soon find his niche performing and writing songs.

Daniels’ first musical gig was playing mandolin in a bluegrass band called the Misty Mountain Boys in the Fifties, but by the end of the decade, he was gigging around clubs in Washington, D.C. and Maryland. His band at the time, the Rockets, would change their name to the Jaguars after the success of their instrumental hit “Jaguar,” released as a single on Epic Records, the same label for which Daniels would again record by the mid-Seventies. His co-writer on “Jaguar” was Don Johnston, a Fort Worth, Texas songwriter and record producer better known as “Bob” Johnston who would play a major role in Daniels’ future Nashville career.

In 1967, Daniels followed Johnston to Nashville, with the latter producing sessions for Columbia Records. “I had always wanted to live in Nashville,” Daniels told Rolling Stone in 2017. “That was going to be it for me. Bob made it possible for me to come there.”

He soon began a steady stream of session work, playing fiddle, bass, and guitar on Leonard Cohen’s 1969 LP Songs From a Room and its 1971 follow-up Songs of Love and Hate, and appearing on recordings by Marty Robbins, Pete Seeger, Flatts & Scruggs, and Claude King.

But it was Bob Dylan who would give him his biggest boost. In 1969, he joined Johnston in the studio to record Dylan’s Nashville Skyline. Although initially admonished for playing too loudly in the sessions, Daniels would appear on three consecutive Dylan albums and also play on Ringo Starr’s 1970 post-Beatles foray into country, Beaucoups of Blues. During this period, Daniels had his songs cut by Barbara Mandrell and Tammy Wynette, and himself began to work as a producer, overseeing projects by Gary and Randy Scruggs and the Youngbloods.

In 1970, Daniels released his self-titled solo debut on Capitol Records, a collection that bridged rambling Sixties hippie-centric rock and blues with the more defined country-rock with which he would become most closely associated. In 1973, he had a hit with the single “Uneasy Rider,” a bluegrass-influenced talking-blues tune with a pot-smoking hippie as its counterculture protagonist, via the Kama Sutra label, and the next year released the LP Way Down Yonder, his fourth album and the first under “The Charlie Daniels Band.”

The CDB, as they were often abbreviated, released 1974’s Fire on the Mountain first on Kama Sutra and later on their longtime label, Epic, with whom they signed a then-lucrative $3 million contract in 1976. Offering the first real major helping of deep-fried Southern rock, Fire on the Mountain also featured a pair of live tracks from Daniels’ first Volunteer Jam at Nashville’s Municipal Auditorium. By 2018, Daniels had hosted 20 such all-star gatherings, with Willie Nelson, the Allman Brothers, Ray Price, Roy Acuff, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Billy Joel, James Brown, Chris Stapleton, and Little Richard among the performers. Counter to the conservative stance he espoused later in life, in the mid-Seventies Daniels advocated for the legalization of marijuana and appeared at campaign fundraisers for Democratic presidential candidate Jimmy Carter in 1976.

The Charlie Daniels Band entered their most fertile commercial period in 1979 with the release of Million Mile Reflections and its fiddle-driven crossover hit “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” featured in the trendsetting 1980 film Urban Cowboy. The band’s breakthrough LP would be certified triple platinum, while the film’s soundtrack went platinum shortly after its release. A four-time nominee at the CMA Awards in 1979, Daniels’ “Devil” would be named CMA Single of the Year and earn the group a Grammy.

“I don’t know where the phrase ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia’ came from or why it entered my mind that day in the rehearsal studio,” Daniels wrote in his 2017 memoir Never Look at the Empty Seats. “I don’t even know where the song idea came from… But when it started coming, it came in a gush. The band grabbed ahold, and when Taz [DiGregorio] came up with the signature keyboard lick behind the devil’s fiddle part, we knew we were on to something.”

The following year, Daniels and the band earned five CMA nominations, including Entertainer of the Year, and nods for the patriotic crossover hit “In America,” which just missed the pop Top Ten. Subsequent singles “The Legend of Wooley Swamp” and the post-Vietnam War tune “Still in Saigon” made the pop Top 40, and in 1982 the CDB appeared as musical guest on Saturday Night Live. The group’s next major country hit, “Drinkin’ My Baby Goodbye,” reached the Top Ten in 1986. In addition to his role as a Southern rock pioneer, Daniels received Dove Awards for his religious recordings in 1995 and 1997.

In 1997, Daniels launched Blue Hat Records with longtime personal manager David Corlew, issuing a diverse slate of LPs including Tailgate Party, his first bluegrass album; Songs From the Longleaf Pines; and the 2007 duets album Deuces, featuring Dolly Parton, Vince Gill, Brenda Lee, and Brad Paisley. The 2014 release Off the Grid – Doin’ It Dylan paid tribute to his former studio-session employer with versions of Dylan songs like “Tangled Up in Blue.”

Daniels was a tireless philanthropist, and he worked to raise funds and awareness for cancer and muscular dystrophy research, the physically and mentally challenged, farmers, and the armed forces. His annual Christmas for Kids concert became a Music City holiday tradition. In 2014, Daniels co-founded the non-profit Journey Home Project to aid U.S military personnel and their families. In recognition of his efforts on behalf of veterans, Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, named its new Veterans and Military Family Center after Daniels and his wife, Hazel, in 2016.

After the September 11th terrorist attacks in 2001, Daniels wrote and recorded the controversial “This Ain’t No Rag, It’s a Flag,” which garnered even more attention when CMT refused to allow him to perform it during the Country Freedom Concert that October in Nashville. In March 2003, after peace activists began protesting the impending war on Iraq, Daniels penned an “open letter to the Hollywood bunch,” in which he branded actor Sean Penn a traitor for visiting Iraq. He also labeled liberal actors “pampered, overpaid, unrealistic children.” Daniels often stirred the pot with his “Soap Box” feature on his website, which chronicled his views on political, moral, and social issues, and he became an outspoken conservative voice on Twitter.

In 2017, Daniels recalled the lean years of his band and rough patches in his personal life in Never Look at the Empty Seats. “It’s all part of the growing process and defining yourself,” Daniels told Rolling Stone in 2017. “That’s why I wanted to include that. Looking back, we played some raunchy places and had some pretty wild times. But that makes you tougher. And you learn how to entertain people.”

Daniels underwent surgery for prostate cancer in 2001, and suffered a mild stroke in 2010 while snowmobiling. In 2013, he contracted pneumonia, after which he had a pacemaker installed.

A member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Grand Ole Opry, Daniels continued to tour and record music up until his death. In 2019, he played a string of headlining shows with Travis Tritt and the Cadillac Three, and released his final album, Beau Weevils — Songs in the Key of E, in 2018.

“As I approach my golden years, I find that the creative juices still flow bountifully. I’ve got enough album concepts and ideas to take me years down the road,” he wrote in his memoir. “And as long as God gives me the strength, I’ll be writing and recording new music.”

Little Richard R.I.P | December 5, 1932 – May 9, 2020

Little Richard, the massively influential rock & roll pioneer whose early hits inspired a generation of musicians, has died at 87.

Dezo Hoffmann/REX/Shutterstock

Little Richard, Founding Father of Rock Who Broke Musical Barriers, Dead at 87

Pianist-singer behind “Tutti Frutti,” “Good Golly Miss Molly,” and “Long Tall Sally” set the template that a generation of musicians would follow

By DAVID BROWNE

Little Richard, a founding father of rock & roll whose fervent shrieks, flamboyant garb, and joyful, gender-bending persona embodied the spirit and sound of that new art form, died Saturday. He was 87. The musician’s son, Danny Jones Penniman, confirmed the pioneer’s death to Rolling Stone. The cause of death was bone cancer, according to his lawyer, Bill Sobel.

Starting with “Tutti Frutti” in 1956, Little Richard cut a series of unstoppable hits – “Long Tall Sally” and “Rip It Up” that same year, “Lucille” in 1957, and “Good Golly Miss Molly” in 1958 – driven by his simple, pumping piano, gospel-influenced vocal exclamations and sexually charged (often gibberish) lyrics. “I heard Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, and that was it,” Elton John told Rolling Stone in 1973. “I didn’t ever want to be anything else. I’m more of a Little Richard stylist than a Jerry Lee Lewis, I think. Jerry Lee is a very intricate piano player and very skillful, but Little Richard is more of a pounder.”

Although he never hit the Top 10 again after 1958, Little Richard’s influence was massive. The Beatles recorded several of his songs, including “Long Tall Sally,” and Paul McCartney’s singing on those tracks – and the Beatles’ own “I’m Down” – paid tribute to Little Richard’s shredded-throat style. His songs became part of the rock & roll canon, covered over the decades by everyone from the Everly Brothers, the Kinks, and Creedence Clearwater Revival to Elvis Costello and the Scorpions. “Elvis popularized [rock & roll],” Steven Van Zandt tweeted after the news broke. “Chuck Berry was the storyteller. Richard was the archetype.”

Little Richard’s stage persona – his pompadours, androgynous makeup, and glass-bead shirts — also set the standard for rock & roll showmanship; Prince, to cite one obvious example, owed a sizable debt to the musician. “Prince is the Little Richard of his generation,” Richard told Joan Rivers in 1989, before looking at the camera and addressing Prince. “I was wearing purple before you was wearing it!”

“If you love anything about the flamboyance of rock & roll, you have Little Richard to thank,” says the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, a longtime fan. “And where would rock & roll be without flamboyance? He was the first. To be able to be that uninhibited back then, you had to have a lot of not-give-a-fuck.”

Born Richard Wayne Penniman on December 5th, 1932, in Macon, Georgia, he was one of 12 children and grew up around uncles who were preachers. “I was born in the slums. My daddy sold whiskey, bootleg whiskey,” he told Rolling Stone in 1970. Although he sang in a nearby church, his father Bud wasn’t supportive of his son’s music and accused him of being gay, resulting in Penniman leaving home at 13 and moving in with a white family in Macon. But music stayed with him: One of his boyhood friends was Otis Redding, and Penniman heard R&B, blues, and country while working at a concession stand at the Macon City Auditorium.

After performing at the Tick Tock Club in Macon and winning a local talent show, Penniman landed his first record deal, with RCA, in 1951. (He became “Little Richard” when he about 15 years old, when the R&B and blues worlds were filled with acts like Little Esther and Little Milton; he had also grown tired with people mispronouncing his last name as “Penny-man.”) He learned his distinctive piano style from Esquerita, a South Carolina singer and pianist who also wore his hair in a high black pompadour.

For the next five years, Little Richard’s career advanced only fitfully; fairly tame, conventional singles he cut for RCA and other labels didn’t chart. “When I first came along, I never heard any rock & roll,” he told Rolling Stone in 1990. “When I started singing [rock & roll], I sang it a long time before I presented it to the public because I was afraid they wouldn’t like it. I never heard nobody do it, and I was scared.”

By 1956, he was washing dishes at the Greyhound bus station in Macon (a job he had first taken a few years earlier, after his father was murdered and Little Richard had to support his family). By then, only one track he’d cut, “Little Richard’s Boogie,” hinted at the musical tornado to come. “I put that little thing in it,” he told Rolling Stone in 1970 of the way he tweaked with his gospel roots. “I always did have that thing, but I didn’t know what to do with the thing I had.”

During this low point, he sent a tape with a rough version of a bawdy novelty song called “Tutti Frutti” to Specialty Records in Chicago. He came up with the song’s famed chorus — “a wop bob alu bob a wop bam boom” — while bored washing dishes. (He also co-wrote “Long Tall Sally” while working that same job.)

By coincidence, label owner and producer Art Rupe was in search of a lead singer for some tracks he wanted to cut in New Orleans, and Penniman’s howling delivery fit the bill. In September 1955, the musician cut a lyrically cleaned-up version of “Tutti Frutti,” which became his first hit, peaking at 17 on the pop chart. “’Tutti Frutti really started the races being together,” he told Rolling Stone in 1990. “From the git-go, my music was accepted by whites.”

Its follow-up, “Long Tall Sally,” hit Number Six, becoming his the highest-placing hit of his career. For just over a year, the musician released one relentless and arresting smash after another. From “Long Tall Sally” to “Slippin’ and Slidin,’” Little Richard’s hits — a glorious mix of boogie, gospel, and jump blues, produced by Robert “Bumps” Blackwell — sounded like he never stood still. With his trademark pompadour and makeup (which he once said he started wearing so that he would be less “threatening” while playing white clubs), he was instantly on the level of Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and other early rock icons, complete with rabid fans and mobbed concerts. “That’s what the kids in America were excited about,” he told Rolling Stone in 1970. “They don’t want the falsehood — they want the truth.”

“It is with a heavy heart that I ask for prayers for the family of my lifelong friend and fellow rocker ‘Little Richard,’” Lewis said in a statement. “He will live on always in my heart with his amazing talent and his friendship! He was one of a kind and I will miss him dearly.”

As with Presley, Lewis, and other contemporaries, Penniman was cast in early rock & roll movies like Don’t Knock the Rock (1956) and The Girl Can’t Help It (1957). In a sign of how segregated the music business and radio were at the time, though, Pat Boone’s milquetoast covers of “Tutti Frutti” and “Long Tall Sally,” both also released in 1956, charted as well if not higher than Richard’s own versions. (“Boone’s “Tutti Frutti” hit Number 12, surpassing Little Richard’s by nine slots.) Penniman later told Rolling Stone that he made sure to sing “Long Tall Sally” faster than “Tutti Frutti” so that Boone couldn’t copy him as much.

But then the hits stopped, by his own choice. After what he interpreted as signs — a plane engine that seemed to be on fire and a dream about the end of the world and his own damnation — Penniman gave up music in 1957 and began attending the Alabama Bible school Oakwood College, where he was eventually ordained a minister. When he finally cut another album, in 1959, the result was a gospel set called God Is Real.

In 1964, with his gospel music career floundering, Little Richard returned to secular rock. Although none of the albums and singles he cut over the next decade for a variety of labels sold well, he was welcomed back by a new generation of rockers, including the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan (who played Little Richard songs on the piano when he was a kid). When Little Richard played the Star-Club in Hamburg in the early Sixties, the opening act was none other than the Beatles. “We used to stand backstage at Hamburg’s Star-Club and watch Little Richard play,” John Lennon said later. “He used to read from the Bible backstage and just to hear him talk we’d sit around and listen. I still love him and he’s one of the greatest.”

By the 1970s, Little Richard was making a respectable living on the rock-oldies circuit, immortalized in a searing, sweaty performance in the 1973 documentary Let the Good Times Roll. During this time, he also started smoking marijuana and became addicted to cocaine while, at the same time, returning to his gospel roots.

Little Richard also dismantled sexual stereotypes in rock & roll, even if he confused many of his fans along the way. During his teen years and into his early rock stardom, his stereotypical flamboyant personality made some speculate about his sexuality. But that flamboyance didn’t derail his career. In the 1984 biography The Life and Times of Little Richard (written with his cooperation), he denounced homosexuality as “contagious … it’s not something you’re born with.”

But while recalling a 1987 Playboy interview with Little Richard for The Guardian, filmmaker John Waters quoted him as saying, “I love gay people. I believe I was the founder of gay. I’m the one who started to be so bold tellin’ the world! You got to remember my dad put me out of the house because of that. I used to take my mother’s curtains and put them on my shoulders. And I used to call myself at the time the Magnificent One. I was wearing makeup and eyelashes when no men were wearing that. I was very beautiful; I had hair hanging everywhere. If you let anybody know you was gay, you was in trouble; so when I came out I didn’t care what nobody thought. A lot of people were scared to be with me.”

Later in life, he described himself as “omnisexual,” attracted to both men and women. But during an interview with the Christian-tied Three Angels Broadcasting Group in 2017, he suddenly denounced gay and trans lifestyles: “God, Jesus — He made men, men. He made women, women, you know? And you’ve got to live the way God wants you to live. So much unnatural affection. So much of people just doing everything and don’t think about God.”

Yet none of that seemed to damage his mystique or legend. In the 1980s, he appeared in movies like Down and Out in Beverly Hills and in TV shows like Full House and Miami Vice. In 1986, he was one of the 10 original inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 1993, he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys. His last known recording was in 2010, when he cut a song for a tribute album to gospel singer Dottie Rambo.

In the years before his death, Little Richard, who was by then based in Nashville, still performed periodically. Onstage, though, the physicality of old was gone: Thanks to hip replacement surgery in 2009, he could only perform sitting down at his piano. But his rock & roll spirit never left him. “I’m sorry I can’t do it like it’s supposed to be done,” he told one audience in 2012. After the audience screamed back in encouragement, he said — with a very Little Richard squeal — “Oh, you gonna make me scream like a white girl!”

Kenny Rogers R.I.P | August 21, 1938 – March 20, 2020

Kenny Rogers, the country and pop singer known for hits like "The Gambler" and "Islands in the Stream," has died at 81. Paul Natkin/Getty Images

Kenny Rogers, Country Music’s ‘The Gambler,’ Dead at 81 Rogers was one of music’s true crossover artists, scoring hits in both country and pop with songs like “Islands in the Stream” and “Lucille”

By STEPHEN L. BETTS

From bold psychedelic rockers and cinematic story songs to sentimental country pop, Kenny Rogers covered considerable musical turf throughout six decades of recording and performing, using his gravel-tinged vocals to dramatic effect. Along the way, he also became a globally recognized actor, photographer, businessman, and philanthropist. When Rogers announced his final Nashville concert in 2017, after 60 years of performances, he acknowledged that his mobility had become more limited in recent years. Rogers died Friday night at age 81 from natural causes at home in Georgia, his rep confirmed in a statement. “The Rogers family is sad to announce that Kenny Rogers passed away last night at 10:25 p.m. at the age of 81,” his rep said. “Rogers passed away peacefully at home from natural causes under the care of hospice and surrounded by his family. The family is planning a small private service at this time out of concern for the national COVID-19 emergency. They look forward to celebrating Kenny’s life publicly with his friends and fans at a later date.”

from Kenny Rogers TV show Rollin' On The River and DVD Remember the 70's

Featured on a staggering 30 Number One singles across the U.S. pop, country, and adult contemporary charts from 1977 to 1999, Rogers earned three Grammys, five CMA awards, and eight ACM awards, along with membership in the Country Music Hall of Fame. He sold more than 100 million records worldwide and charted internationally with enduring hits including “The Gambler,” “Lucille,” and “Islands in the Stream,” the breezy Bee Gees-penned 1983 collaboration with Dolly Parton.

“You never know how much you love somebody until they’re gone,” Parton wrote following news of Rogers’ death. “I’ve had so many wonderful years and wonderful times with my friend Kenny, but above all the music and the success, I loved him as a wonderful man and a true friend.”

In a statement to Rolling Stone, the Bee Gees’ Barry Gibb called Rogers “a musical force and a character to be reckoned with. He made a huge impact on our lives, and we will miss him greatly.”

A founding member of folk-rock group the First Edition, Rogers was a staple on TV’s most influential variety series throughout the Sixties and Seventies, making regular appearances on shows hosted by Ed Sullivan, Johnny Cash, and Glen Campbell. His final Nashville concert, in October 2017, featured his last-ever performance with Parton and appearances from Reba McEntire, Alison Krauss, the Flaming Lips, and others.

Born on August 21st, 1938, Kenneth Donald Rogers was the fourth of eight children, raised in the San Felipe Courts, a public-housing project in Houston’s Fourth Ward. Exposed to everything from jazz and R&B to pop and country, Rogers played guitar and sang in a doo-wop vocal group he formed at Jefferson Davis High School in 1956 called the Scholars. In 1958, he (then billed on the label as “Kenneth Rogers”) scored a solo hit for Carlton Records called “That Crazy Feeling.”

Rogers would learn to play bass for his next gig as a member of the Houston jazz trio the Bobby Doyle Three. Moving to Los Angeles, he joined popular folk group the New Christy Minstrels. In 1967, Rogers and three of the Minstrels, plus non-Minstrel drummer Mickey Jones, formed the First Edition, the genre-defying group that would reach the Top Five with their sophomore single on Reprise Records, Mickey Newbury’s trippy “Just Dropped In (to See What Condition My Condition Was In).” Featuring Glen Campbell on guitar, the tune was the first of the group’s seven Top 40 pop hits, which also included their chilling take on Mel Tillis’ “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town.”

Rogers’ gruff, smoldering vocals would also distinguish another of the group’s biggest hits, the Mac Davis-penned “Something’s Burning.” In 1969, the group released their fourth LP, Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town, which also featured their version of Kris Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee.” The LP cover was the first to credit the group as “Kenny Rogers and the First Edition.”

Rogers was signed to United Artists Records in 1975 by producer and Nashville label head Larry Butler, and his first LP there, Love Lifted Me, produced only minor hits. But in 1977, he would earn his first Number One country smash (and first pop Top Five solo hit) with the mournful barroom ballad “Lucille.” A Number One in the U.K. and other countries, the Hal Bynum and Roger Bowling-penned weeper paved the way for Rogers’ conversational singing style to make blockbuster hits of story-to-screen tales, including “The Gambler” and “Coward of the County.”

Music video by Kenny Rogers performing The Gambler. © 2018 Capitol Records LLC, Courtesy of Capitol Records Nashville under license from Universal Music Ente...

With “The Gambler,” Rogers hit a musical trifecta: a ghostly allegory built around trains, the draw of the cards, and the wisdom of the aged. Nashville songwriter Don Schlitz would take home a Grammy and CMA Song of the Year honors for the song, but Rogers parlayed it into a mini empire, portraying fictional Old West gambler Brady Hawkes in five made-for-TV films from 1980 to 1994. The song also spawned a slot machine, a book series, and Rogers’ appearance in a humorous 2014 GEICO Insurance commercial, where his a cappella rendition of the song’s memorable chorus (“You got to know when to hold ’em/know when to fold ’em…”) annoys his fellow poker players.

While “The Gambler” was a country-to-pop crossover hit, Rogers’ next several singles, alternating between ballads (“She Believes in Me,” the Grammy-winning “You Decorated My Life”) and story songs (“Coward of the Country”), kept his feet firmly planted in both worlds, culminating in a six-week Number One pop tune in “Lady,” penned by Lionel Richie. He also scored a smash duet, “Don’t Fall in Love With a Dreamer,” with Kim Carnes, who wrote an entire concept album with husband Dave Ellingson at Rogers’ request. Gideon, which through its dozen tracks told the story of Texas cowboy Gideon Tanner, was Rogers’ fifth Number One country album and another Top 20 entry on the multi-genre Billboard 200. Interestingly, Rogers, with his former band the First Edition, had previously recorded a concept album about a California town, The Ballad of Calico, in 1972.

Rogers, who was one of country music’s first acts to sell out arenas, released his Greatest Hits LP in 1980, a compilation that has sold in excess of 24 million copies worldwide. The 1981 LP Share Your Love featured appearances from Michael Jackson and Gladys Knight, and included four songs penned by Lionel Richie. Teaming with Dottie West in the late Seventies and early Eighties, the pair notched five massive hits, including the Number Ones “Every Time Two Fools Collide,” “All I Ever Need Is You,” and “What Are We Doin’ in Love.”

Rogers’ sole starring role in a feature film was as race car driver Brewster Baker in the 1982 comedy-drama Six Pack. He also sang the film’s hit theme song, “Love Will Turn You Around.” A year later, he had yet another hit duet, with Sheena Easton, on Bob Seger’s “We’ve Got Tonight.”

HD - HQ Audio - ISLANDS IN THE STREAM

In 1984, he reunited with Dolly Parton to record the holiday LP Once Upon a Christmas. They also topped the country charts again in 1985 with “Real Love.” Other collaborations included the 1984 Grammy-nominated single “What About Me?” with Kim Carnes and James Ingram, and 1987’s “Make No Mistake, She’s Mine,” with Ronnie Milsap. Rogers was also a featured performer in the 1985 USA for Africa collaboration “We Are the World,” alongside Michael Jackson, Bob Dylan, and Ray Charles. Rogers’ soft-rock-influenced 1985 LP, The Heart of the Matter, produced by George Martin, was the singer’s last to top the Billboard Country Albums chart. In 1986, under the pseudonym “Joey Coco,” Prince penned the power ballad “You’re My Love,” for Rogers, who cut it for his They Don’t Make Them Like They Used To album.

From 1992 to 1994, Rogers hosted the A&E history series The Real West. His 1993 album If Only My Heart Had a Voice featured “Ol’ Red,” later a hit for Blake Shelton. He returned to his musical roots as a member of the Bobby Doyle Three with the 1994 collection of jazz standards, Timepiece. In 1999, Rogers’ own Dreamcatcher label issued the She Rides Wild Horses LP, featuring “The Greatest,” penned by Don Schlitz. A subsequent release from the album, “Buy Me a Rose,” with Alison Krauss and Billy Dean, marked Rogers’ return to the top spot on the Country Singles chart for the first time in almost 13 years. In 2005, Rogers and Parton topped CMT’s 100 Greatest Duets with “Islands in the Stream.” It marked the last time the pair performed together onstage until Rogers’ farewell concert in Nashville in 2017.

A co-founder of the Kenny Rogers Roasters restaurant franchise (which would form the basis of an entire 1996 episode of Seinfeld), the singer was involved in various ventures in the live-entertainment destination of Branson, Missouri. He also helped fund construction of the Kenny Rogers United Cerebral Palsy Center of Southeast Missouri, which was later rechristened the Kenny Rogers Children’s Center.

Rogers was an amateur photographer and published three photo books, including 2005’s This Is My Country, featuring black-and-white portraits of country stars Reba McEntire, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, and others. In addition, he authored the children’s books The Greatest, based on his hit song, and The Toy Shoppe, inspired by his touring musical play presented during his popular annual Christmas tour.

Rogers was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2013, and received a Grammy nomination with Dolly Parton the following year for their duet “You Can’t Make Old Friends.” Not long before his 2017 retirement, Rogers played to hundreds of thousands of attendees at iconic music festivals including Bonnaroo and Glastonbury.

“I tried not to compromise. I did songs I believed in, because you do them with more authority and you do them with a greater sense of belief,” Rogers said of his legacy as an artist to Rolling Stone Country in a previously unpublished 2017 interview. “If you do that … if you have something you believe in, you have to stick to it and you have to commit to it. That’s what I think I’ve done best. I’ve believed in things and I’ve stuck to ’em.”

Aretha Franklin R.I.P | August 16, 2018

Cologne Recording (1968)
Aretha Franklin in rehearsals at a Cologne studio for a European TV show.

DPA/MEDIAPUNCH

Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, Dies at 76

Chris Morris, Music Reporter

“Queen of Soul” Aretha Franklin, the eruptive singer who reigned atop the pop and R&B charts in the late ’60s and early ’70s with a succession of albums and singles of unparalleled power and emotional depth, has died. She was 76.

Franklin was suffering from pancreatic cancer, and had earlier undergone surgery in December 2010. Her longtime publicist Gwendolyn Quinn reported Franklin died Thursday morning at her home in Detroit.

“In one of the darkest moments of our lives, we are not able to find the appropriate words to express the pain in our heart,” Quinn said in a statement. “We have lost the matriarch and rock of our family. The love she had for her children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and cousins knew no bounds.”

She was the most lionized and lauded female R&B vocalist of her era. Winner of 18 Grammy Awards, and a Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement honoree in 1994, she became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. She was the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Arts and the Kennedy Center Honors.

Bearing a prodigious talent born in the church, Franklin was still a child when she was tapped for stardom. She attracted awed attention in the gospel world before entering the pop sphere at the age of 18 under producer and label exec John Hammond’s wing at Columbia Records. The expressive, uncommonly forceful voice was there, but the hits were scarce.

It was at Atlantic Records that “Lady Soul” truly arrived. In 1967, Franklin’s profound debut single for the label, “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You),” a No. 10 pop hit, was succeeded by her scorching, career-defining No. 1 cover of Otis Redding’s “Respect.”

Those songs and succeeding hits melded a deep gospel feel with R&B instrumentation and worldly themes, elaborating on the groundbreaking work of pioneering soul men Ray Charles, James Brown and Franklin’s friend and idol Sam Cooke, who had similarly crossed over from sacred music to secular stardom.

Franklin’s 12-year stint at Atlantic yielded a dozen top-10 pop singles — the biggest hits of her half-century career, which encompassed 80 pop chart singles — and 20 No. 1 R&B singles. They established her as the nonpareil female soul singer of her generation, often imitated but never equaled.

As “The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll” put it succinctly, “From 1967 to 1970 she was the preeminent black musician in pop music.” Already a legend, she moved to Arista Records for a run of lesser hits from 1980-2003. Her last chart single, “Put You Up on Game” (a duet with “American Idol” champ Fantasia), was released in 2007.

Grammys (1972)
Aretha Franklin holds her Grammy Award trophy for Best Rhythm and Blues performance of the song “Bridge Over Troubled Waters.”

AP PHOTO/DAVE PICKOFF

Born in Memphis, Franklin was the third of four children; her sisters Erma (who originated Janis Joplin’s signature hit “Piece of My Heart”) and Carolyn (who often backed and sometimes wrote for her sibling) would also enjoy R&B careers. She was the daughter of C.L. Franklin, who served as pastor of a prominent Detroit ministry, the New Bethel Baptist Church, from the late ’40s.

As a youngster, Aretha accompanied her father on his evangelical tours, and came to gospel singing through such family friends as Clara Ward (with whom her father had a long-term romantic relationship), Mahalia Jackson and Marion Williams. These gospel elders became important maternal figures for Franklin after her parents split when she was 6 years old, and early musical role models as well.

A primarily self-taught and gifted pianist, Franklin was already a well-traveled veteran of the gospel road at 14 when she issued her first album, “Songs of Faith,” on Chess Records’ JVB subsidiary, which also released her father’s sermons on LPs.

As a vulnerable teen, she was preyed upon by men, some much older, resulting in two pregnancies, the first at age 12 and again at age 15. As David Remnick noted in a 2016 New Yorker profile, Franklin “saw a great deal of life, including the libertine atmosphere surrounding the gospel-music scene. By the time she recorded [her] first songs, she was pregnant with her second child. She left school and went on the road for, more or less, the rest of her life.”

Seeing possibilities for Franklin as a commercial pop artist, Cooke urged her to sign with RCA Records, which released his post-gospel R&B hits. However, in 1960 she inked a deal with Columbia. Hammond — who had discovered Billie Holiday and Count Basie — primarily envisioned her as a jazz-styled vocalist.

Franklin’s five years at Columbia were frustrating ones, marked by unfocused production work and repertoire unsuited to her gospel-based style. She recorded her 1961 debut album with jazz pianist Ray Bryant’s combo. Her first top-40 single — her only one for the label — was a version of Al Jolson’s 1918 hit “Rock-a-Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody.” She essayed soupy ballads and Tin Pan Alley antiquities, and covered songs by Holiday, Dinah Washington and Dionne Warwick. Nothing clicked.

In late 1966, Franklin was signed to Atlantic by Jerry Wexler, producer of many of the label’s R&B smashes, who divined her potential as a straight-up soul singer. In the late exec’s words, “I took her to church, sat her down at the piano and let her be herself.”

Academy Awards (1975)
Aretha Franklin performs “Wherever Love Takes Me” from “Gold” during the 47th Academy Awards.

AP PHOTO/REED SAXON

An abortive session at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Ala., produced the breakthrough single “I Never Loved a Man.” A subsequent New York date with saxophonist King Curtis resulted in “Respect.” Both topped the national R&B charts and broke through on the pop side; the latter number garnered Franklin her first two Grammys. Her fame was almost instantly assured: In June 1968, she appeared on the cover of Time magazine, a rare feat for a pop music performer of any race or gender.

One incandescent hit followed another through the early ’70s: “Baby I Love You” (No. 4 pop), “Chain of Fools” (No. 2), “Since You’ve Been Gone” (No. 4), “Think” (No. 7), “Bridge Over Troubled Water” (No. 6), “Spanish Harlem” (No. 2), “Day Dreaming” (No. 5), “Until You Come Back to Me” (No. 3). All of them made the apex of the R&B chart.

These were accompanied by a string of top-five albums produced by Wexler and Arif Mardin: “I Never Loved a Man” (1967), “Aretha Arrives” (1967), “Lady Soul” (1968), “Aretha Now” (1968). Though less popular, “Spirit in the Dark” (1970) and “Young Gifted and Black” (1972), on which Franklin took a growing hand in the writing, were uncommonly ambitious, probing works.

A pair of concert LPs that both reached No. 7 nationally reflected two sides of Franklin’s musical personality in white-hot form. “Aretha Live at Fillmore West” (1971) was a puissant soul recital cut at the titular San Francisco venue with King Curtis’ band. “Amazing Grace” (1972) was a two-LP set recorded in a Los Angeles church with a choir led by Rev. James Cleveland that potently revealed the singer’s gospel roots anew. (A feature documentary film of the latter performance, shot by the late director Sydney Pollack, remains unreleased.)

Her highest-charting latter-day Atlantic album was “Sparkle” (No. 18, 1976), a film soundtrack set that paired her with Curtis Mayfield, then still riding high in the aftermath of another movie-driven hit, “Superfly.” Written and produced by Mayfield, “Sparkle” spawned the No. 1 R&B hit “Something He Can Feel.” She collaborated again with Mayfield on the less successful “Almighty Fire” (1979). Franklin ended her Atlantic epoch with the flop disco album “La Diva” in 1979.

‘The Blues Brothers’ (1980)
Franklin co-starred with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd in the 1980 classic film “The Blues Brothers.”

UNIVERSAL/KOBAL/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

In 1980, Franklin reprised “Think” in the Dan Aykroyd-John Belushi musical comedy vehicle “The Blues Brothers,” in which Ray Charles and James Brown also took on-screen roles.” That year, she signed a contract with Clive Davis’ Arista, where she would spend the next 23 years.

Though she dutifully attempted to adapt to latter-day R&B styles, Franklin scored just a handful of pop hits at Arista: the Narada Michael Walden-produced “Freeway of Love” (No. 3, 1985), “Who’s Zoomin’ Who” (No. 7, 1985) and the George Michael duet “I Know You Were Waiting (For Me),” which became her final No. 1 pop single in 1987.

“Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves,” a memorable duet with Eurythmics’ Annie Lennox, reached the top 20 in ’85. Some will fondly recall her 1986 remake of the Rolling Stones’ “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” cut for a Whoopi Goldberg picture with Keith Richards producing and playing guitar.

The mid ’80s were marked by personal unhappiness and tragedy. Franklin’s second marriage, to actor Glynn Turman, dissolved in 1984. (She had divorced first husband Ted White, who also served as her manager, in 1969 after marrying him at 19.) The same year, her father died: C.L. Franklin had spent five years in a coma after being shot during a robbery in Detroit.

Years of indifferent releases on Arista culminated with the ironically titled label swan song “So Damn Happy” in 2003. The seasonal “This Christmas, Aretha” was issued through the Borders chain in 2008.

Despite an ongoing struggle with her weight and an intense fear of flying, Franklin continued to perform live. In January 2009, she sang at President Obama’s inaugural ceremony. Her health crisis in late 2010 forced her to cancel six months of concert dates.

After recovering from surgery for cancer, Franklin resumed touring (intermittently, and some times discontinuously due to illness) and issued records again, on her own Aretha’s imprint. “Aretha: A Woman Falling Out of Love” (2011) compiled tracks cut during sessions in 2006, and made little impression on the charts.

However, 2014’s “Aretha Franklin Sings the Great Diva Classics” became the singer’s most popular album in nearly 30 years. The collection, which offered her interpretations of earlier hits by Etta James, Barbra Streisand, Alicia Keys, Dinah Washington and others, matched the peaks of her 1985 “Who’s Zoomin’ Who” long player, topping out at No. 13 pop and No. 3 R&B.

She last performed in November at the Elton John AIDS Foundation Gala in New York. At that performance — where John introduced her as “the greatest singer of all time” — Franklin appeared very slim but in fine voice as she delivered a nine-song set including “Say a Little Prayer,” “I Knew You Were Waiting” and “Freeway.” She was also honored at the Clive Davis Pre-Grammy Gala in New York in January. Franklin did not perform, but Jennifer Hudson — who had been personally selected by the singer to play her in a forthcoming biopic — performed several of her hits.

In 2017 the singer said she’d planned to retire from touring in the coming months, and announced that she was working with longtime friends and collaborators Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie and Elton John on a new album.

She is survived by four sons: Clarence and Edward Franklin, Ted White Jr. (a regular member of her touring band) and Kecalf Cunningham.

Gregg Allman R.I.P | May 27, 2017

Gregg Allman, a singer, musician and songwriter who played an essential role in the invention of Southern rock, has died at the age of 69. Photofest

GREGG ALLMAN, SOUTHERN ROCK PIONEER, DIES AT 69

Chris Morris, Music Reporter

Gregg Allman, whose hard-jamming, bluesy sextet the Allman Brothers Band was the pioneering unit in the Southern rock explosion of the ‘70s, died Saturday due to complications from liver cancer, his longtime manager, Michael Lehman, confirmed to Variety. He was 69.

As recently as April 24, reports surfaced claiming Allman was in hospice, although Lehman denied those reports, which Allman then substantiated in a Facebook post. However, he had suffered a number of ailments in recent years — including an irregular heartbeat, a respiratory infection, a hernia and a liver transplant — and cancelled many scheduled tour dates in recent months for health reasons. Lehman said that Allman’s liver cancer recurred around five years ago, but the singer chose to keep the news private.

Allman completed a solo album, “Southern Blood,” that is set for release late this year. Lehman said they received some final mixes for the album on Friday, and Allman listened to them the night before his death. He added that Allman passed away with his family nearby, and was “at peace.”

For his work with the Allman Brothers, the legendary band he cofounded with his late brother Duane, and as a solo artist, Allman is one of the leading lights of Southern Rock. While the group’s greatest work was done before and shortly after Duane’s death in 1971, they stayed together, off and on, over 45 years and remain a singular influence on Southern rock and jam-band musicians. They were a top-drawing touring outfit until October 2014, when the group finally closed the book on their career with a series of dates at their longtime favorite venue, New York’s Beacon Theatre.

Music video by The Allman Brothers Band performing Midnight Rider (Live at Great Woods). (C) 2013 Columbia Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment

Allman’s solo career always played second to that of the band, but he enjoyed solo success with 1973’s “Laid Back” and 1987’s “I’m No Angel,” both of which were certified gold. In 2011 he released an unexpectedly strong album entitled “Low Country Blues” that was produced by T Bone Burnett (Alison Krauss/Robert Plant, Los Lobos, Elvis Costello, “O Brother Where Art Thou?”), who, along with instrumentalists like pianist Dr. John and guitarist Doyle Bramhall II, brought Allman back to his gutsy roots with stellar results.

With his older sibling, guitarist Duane Allman, the singer-keyboardist-guitarist-songwriter led one of the most popular concert attractions of the rock ballroom era; the group’s 1971 set “At Fillmore East,” recorded at Bill Graham’s New York hall, was a commercial breakthrough that showed off the band’s prodigious songcraft and instrumental strengths.

After Duane Allman’s death in a motorcycle accident weeks after the live album’s release, his younger brother led the band through four more stormy decades of playing and recording. The Allman Brothers Band’s latter-day history proved tumultuous, with other fatalities, disbandings, regroupings and very public battles with drugs and alcohol on the part of its surviving namesake.

Though Gregg Allman’s highly publicized addictions, his tabloid-ready marriage to pop vocalist Cher, and his equally public disputes with co-founding guitarist Dickey Betts came under harsh and sometimes mocking scrutiny over the years, Allman prevailed as the linchpin of an act that maintained popularity over four decades and opened the commercial door for such other Southern acts as Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Marshall Tucker Band.

As a member of the Allman Brothers Band, Allman was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and was honored with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012.

He was born Gregory LeNoir Allman on Dec. 8, 1947, in Nashville; brother Duane was born 13 months earlier in the same hospital. In 1949, his father was shot to death by a man he offered a ride to in a bar. As their mother was studying accounting to support the family, the brothers were sent to a Tennessee military school at an early age.

The Allmans became attracted to music after seeing a 1960 concert by R&B singer Jackie Wilson in Daytona Beach, FL, where the family had moved the year before. Using money from a paper route (augmented by his mother), Gregg bought a guitar, and taught Duane his first chords. Both played guitar in the bands they founded after returning to the military academy in their teens.

Allman Brothers circa 1970. GAB Photo/Getty

Their pro bands the Escorts and the Allman Joys, which favored R&B, blues and rock covers, found work on the Florida club circuit in the mid-‘60s; Gregg began playing keyboards in the latter unit. The Allman Joys were playing without success in St. Louis when Bill McEuen, manager of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, met them and offered to set them up in Los Angeles.

Renamed Hour Glass, the L.A.-based group cut two unsuccessful pop-oriented albums for Liberty Records in 1967-68. Duane chafed at the direction being forced on the combo and fled for Alabama, where he became a prominent session guitarist at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, AL. Gregg remained in L.A. to fulfill obligations to Liberty, but was summoned to Jacksonville, FL, in 1969 by his brother, who envisioned a new blues-based band with two guitarist and two drummers, featuring members of another local combo, the 31st of February.

Calling themselves the Allman Brothers Band, the new unit – the Allmans, guitarist Betts, bassist Berry Oakley and drummers Butch Trucks and Jai Johanny “Jaimoe” Johanson – was signed by Otis Redding’s former manager Phil Walden for management and as an act on his Macon, GA-based label Capricorn Records. The group moved to Macon, which became its base for the duration.

Neither of the ABB’s first two albums was an enormous success: Its self-titled bow peaked at No. 188 in 1969, while sophomore set “Idlewild South” topped out at No. 38 in 1970. But they established Gregg Allman as a vocal, instrumental and songwriting power: His compositions included such future staples of the band’s live set as “Not My Cross to Bear,” “Dreams,” “Whipping Post” and “Midnight Rider.”

Though problems with hard drug abuse were already surfacing in the band, the Allmans became a huge concert attraction in the South; the enthusiastic sponsorship of promoter Graham led to high-profile gigs at New York’s Filllmore East (where the band attained a rabid following) and San Francisco’s Fillmore.

The Allmans made their commercial mark with “At Fillmore East”: The expansive, Tom Dowd-produced two-record set, recorded during two nights at the venue, shot to No.13 ultimately sold more than 1 million copies and became one of the defining concert recordings of its day. However, Duane Allman’s tragic death at 24 on a Macon street on Oct. 29, 1971, cast a shadow over its success.

The band completed a follow-up two-LP set, “Eat a Peach,” as a quintet, with live numbers featuring Duane filling out the contents. The 1972 package rose to No. 4 nationally and went platinum, but disaster again struck: In a mishap eerily similar to Duane Allman’s fatal crash, hard-drinking bassist Oakley died after driving his bike into the side of a truck that November.

Shaken by the deaths of his brother and Oakley and increasingly incapacitated by heroin, cocaine and alcohol, Gregg Allman ceded much of the band’s songwriting and front man duties to Betts; as he noted in “My Cross to Bear,” his 2012 memoir, “Up until then, we’d never really had a front man; Dickey took it upon himself to create that role.”

The ABB released its only No. 1 album, “Brothers and Sisters,” in 1973; the record was powered to the top by the Betts-penned No. 2 single “Ramblin’ Man,” the group’s only top-10 45.

Allman retreated from the group to cut his solo debut “Laid Back” in 1973; rising to No. 13, it would be his most popular work away from the band for nearly 40 years, and it spawned his only top-20 solo single, a down-tempo remake of “Midnight Rider.”

On the heels of the lugubrious but popular “Win, Lose or Draw” (No. 5, 1975), the group set out on its biggest, and costliest, tour to date. The ABB flew to its dates on a lavishly appointed private jet previously used by the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin; in his book, Allman recalls, “The first time we walked onto the plane, ‘Welcome Allman Brothers’ was spelled out in cocaine on the bar.”

The ABB returned from the 41-date tour with a mere $100,000 in hand, owing to over-the-top spending. This financial catastrophe was compounded by the indictment of the group’s security man (and Allman’s drug bag man) Scooter Herring on cocaine distribution charges; Allman testified against Herring before a grand jury and at his trial, which netted a 75-year prison sentence.

Addicted to heroin and embroiled in inter-band conflict with Betts, Allman began spending more time in Los Angeles with Cher, whom he had wed in June 1975. The incongruous couple was followed avidly by gossip columnists. In the wake of an unsuccessful 1977 solo album, “Playin’ Up a Storm” (No. 42), Allman and Cher released their only duo album, “Two the Hard Way”; embarrassingly credited to “Allman and Woman,” the set failed to chart, and its accompanying tour witnessed scuffles between hostile camps of fans in the audiences. Allman and Cher divorced in 1978.

Membership in the ABB rotated repeatedly for the remainder of the group’s career, which saw ever-diminishing contributions from writer Allman. He authored just one song for the group’s final Capricorn album, “Enlightened Rogues” (No. 27, 1979); the financially unstable imprint crashed within a year of its release. Allman was also a minor contributor to a pair of slick, poorly received albums for Arista Records in 1980-81.

During the band’s protracted hiatus of the ‘80s, Allman issued a pair of solo sets; the more popular of the two, 1987’s “I’m No Angel” (No. 30, 1987), spawned the titular radio hit.

Encouraged by airplay on the burgeoning “classic rock” radio format, the ABB reconvened for a 1989 tour. In 1990, the group recorded “Seven Turns” (No. 53) with “Fillmore East” producer Tom Dowd; the group also began multi-night residencies at New York’s Beacon Theatre, which became an annual tradition. They issued four commercially unrewarding albums – two studio sets and two concert releases – between 1991 and 1995.

Following a drunken appearance at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in New York in January 1995, onetime junkie Allman, after 11 stints in rehab, finally stopped drinking on his own, under the 24-hour watch of two nurses.

Following the exit of longtime guitarist Warren Haynes and bassist Allen Woody and the recruitment of Butch Trucks’ young nephew Derek Trucks on guitar, the ABB cut the live “Peakin’ at the Beacon” in 2000. Tension within the band had reached the breaking point, and, following a severely worded fax to Betts from the other members and subsequent legal arbitration, the Allman Brothers Band’s other founding guitarist made his exit.

The front line of Allman, Haynes and Derek Trucks and the group’s founding drummers were heard on the Allman Brothers Band’s studio collection “Hittin’ the Note” (No. 37, 2003) and the live “One Way Out” (No. 190, 2004). After 45 years in business, the band was formally dissolved after an October 2014 show at the Beacon.

Allman’s old habits caught up with him in the ‘00s. Diagnosed with hepatitis C – a disease common to intravenous drug users – in 2007, he learned that he was suffering from liver cancer in 2008. He underwent successful liver transplant surgery at the Mayo Clinic in 2010.

Before his surgery, Allman entered the studio to record his first solo album in 13 years. “Low Country Blues,” a striking and powerful recital of old blues songs, augmented by one Allman-Haynes original and produced by T Bone Burnett (Alison Krauss/Robert Plant, Los Lobos, Elvis Costello, “O Brother Where Art Thou?”), garnered the best reviews of his career, collected a Grammy Award nomination and became his highest-charting solo release, reaching No. 5 in early 2011.

However, health problems and catastrophe continued to dog him. He cut short a 2011 European tour because of respiratory issues, which ultimately mandated lung surgery. He faced a drug relapse spurred by painkillers, and did a stint in rehab. In 2014, a film based on his 2012 memoir, “Midnight Rider,” ceased production after a camera assistant on director Randall Miller’s feature was killed by a freight train on the first day of shooting.

Allman’s last concert took place on October 29, 2016 in Atlanta, a headlining set at his own Laid Back Festival.

Married and divorced six times, Allman is survived by three sons and two daughters, all by different mothers. Four of the children are professional musicians.

Allman will be buried at Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon, Georgia, next to Duane and former Allmans bassist Berry Oakley (who died a year after Duane), Lehman said. Their mother’s ashes, currently in Gregg’s home, will be buried there as well.

Prince R.I.P | April 21, 2016

Prince performing in the Netherlands, 1995.
Paul Bergen/Redferns

Prince Dies at 57: Iconic Musical Genius Found Dead in Paisley Park

4/21/2016 by Dan Rys

Prince died earlier today (April 21) at age 57 at his Paisley Park home and studio in Minneapolis, his publicist confirmed to the Associated Press. TMZ first reported the news.

According to a press release sent from the Carver County Sheriff's Department this afternoon, deputies arrived at Paisley Park at 9:43 a.m. and found Prince unresponsive in the elevator. After CPR attempts were unsuccessful, he was pronounced dead at 10:07 a.m. The cause of death has not yet been determined, and Carver County with assistance from Hennepin County Sheriffs and the Midwest Medical Examiner's Office are investigating.

Gone But Not Forgotten: In Memoriam 2016

Prince was hospitalized last week after his plane for was forced to make an emergency landing in Moline, Ill. Released a few hours later, a rep told TMZ that he had been battling a bad case of the flu.

One of the most iconic musicians in music history, Prince's extensive career grew out of the music scene of his native Minneapolis, where he lived his entire life. His 1978 debut album For You and self-titled second LP, released in October 1979, kicked off an incredibly prolific run of albums that included 1999, Purple Rain, Around The World In A Day, Sign O The Times and Batman, among others, throughout the 1980s at a clip of nearly one per year, evolving with each release.

R.I.P. Prince: 11 Deep Cuts From the Purple One's Vast Catalog

It was 1984's Purple Rain -- his first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 -- released in conjunction with the film of the same name, that cemented him as one of the greatest artists of his generation, earning him two Grammys, and Oscar and a victory over Michael Jackson's Thriller for Favorite Pop/Rock Album at the 1985 American Music Awards. In total he would receive seven Grammy Awards from 32 nominations between 1984 and 2010. Along the way, he worked with several bands under a series of pseudonyms, including The Time, the New Power Generation and The Revolution, as both frontman and producer.

Prince was also known for his eponymous Love Symbol, created in protest against his longtime record label Warner Bros., under which he released an album in 1992. His 18th and final album for the label, 1996's Chaos and Disorder, finally released him from his contract.

As a recording artist, Prince was legendary for his prolific and perfectionist nature which allowed him to release a steady slew of material as he experimented in the studio; as a result, unreleased b-sides and bootlegs have become highly sought-after collectibles for die-hard fans, and his infamous "vault" of recordings has become the stuff of legend. Yet he was also truly transcendent as a performer, regularly stretching his shows beyond the three-hour mark and showcasing his stunning guitar work, which became an underrated part of his legacy, often overshadowed by his iconic singing voice and abilities as a songwriter and bandleader.

Over his 35-plus-year career, he released 39 solo studio albums and never stopped releasing new material; since September 2014, he put out four new full-length records with his latest band, 3rd Eye Girl, continuously experimenting with psychedelic rock and intergalactic funk.

Prince's legacy as a musician, a singer, a style icon and an endlessly creative mind is nearly unparalleled, and his influence stretches from pop to R&B to funk to hip-hop and everywhere in between. Purple Rain was the first of four No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200; an additional 12 LPs peaked in the top 10 in four different decades. The first single from his self-titled LP, "I Wanna Be Your Lover," topped the Billboard R&B chart and he would go on to land 19 top 10 hits on the Hot 100, including No. 1s "When Doves Cry," "Let's Go Crazy," "Kiss," "Batdance" and "Cream."

Dan Hicks R.I.P | February 6, 2016

Dan Hicks, of the Hot Licks, Dies at 74; Countered the ’60s Sound
By PETER KEEPNEWS

Dan Hicks, a singer, songwriter and bandleader who attracted a devoted following with music that was defiantly unfashionable, proudly eccentric and foot-tappingly catchy, died on Saturday at his home in Mill Valley, Calif. He was 74.

The cause was liver cancer, said his wife, Clare.

The 1971 album “Where’s the Money?” by Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks

Mr. Hicks began performing with his band, Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, in the late 1960s in San Francisco, where psychedelic rock bands like Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead dominated the music scene. The Hot Licks’ sound could not have been more different.

At a time when rock was getting louder and more aggressive, Mr. Hicks’s instrumentation — two guitars (Mr. Hicks played rhythm), violin and stand-up bass, with two women providing harmony and backup vocals — offered a laid-back, all-acoustic alternative that was a throwback to a simpler time, while his lyrics gave the music a modern, slightly askew edge.

He came to call his music “folk swing,” but that only hinted at the range of influences he synthesized. He drew from the American folk tradition but also from the Gypsy jazz of Django Reinhardt, the Western swing of Bob Wills, the harmony vocals of the Andrews Sisters, the raucous humor of Fats Waller and numerous other sources.

The 1972 album “Striking It Rich” by Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks.
“It starts out with kind of a folk music sound,” Mr. Hicks explained in a 2007 interview, “and we add a jazz beat and solos and singing. We have the two girls that sing, and jazz violin, and all that, so it’s kind of light in nature, it’s not loud. And it’s sort of, in a way, kind of carefree.”

The 1972 album “Striking It Rich” by Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks

Songs like “How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away?,” “Milk-Shakin’ Mama” (“I saw the girl who keeps the ice cream/And now it’s I who scream for her”) and “Hell, I’d Go,” about a man whose fondest wish is to be abducted by aliens, displayed his dry and often absurd wit, as did his gently self-mocking stage presence. But he had his serious side, too: “I Scare Myself,” a longtime staple of his repertoire, was a brooding, hypnotic minor-key ballad about being afraid to love.

Mr. Hicks’s records never sold in the millions, but at the height of his popularity in the early 1970s, he and his band appeared on network television and headlined at Carnegie Hall, and he appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone.

Fellow musicians were among his biggest fans: Guest artists on “Beatin’ the Heat” (2000), the first Hot Licks album after a long hiatus, included Bette Midler, Elvis Costello and Tom Waits, while Willie Nelson and Jimmy Buffett joined him in the studio four years later for “Selected Shorts.”

Daniel Ivan Hicks was born on Dec. 9, 1941, in Little Rock, Ark., the son of Ivan Hicks, a career military man, and the former Evelyn Kehl. His family moved to Santa Rosa, Calif., near San Francisco, when he was a child.

Dan Hicks in 2012. Credit Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal, via Associated Press

He took up drums in sixth grade and guitar as a teenager. After graduating from San Francisco State College (now San Francisco State University) with a degree in broadcasting, he performed in local folk clubs while also playing drums with dance bands.

From 1965 to 1968, Mr. Hicks was the drummer and occasional vocalist with the Charlatans, widely regarded as the first San Francisco psychedelic band, although he himself remembered it as less a band than “just kind of some loose guys.” While still with the Charlatans, he formed the first version of the Hot Licks.

The group’s 1969 album, “Original Recordings,” sold poorly, but three subsequent albums for the independent Blue Thumb label established it as a successful touring act.

Mr. Hicks nonetheless disbanded the group in 1973, at the height of its popularity. “It was getting old,” he explained in 1997. “We became less compatible as friends. I was pretty disillusioned, had some money, and didn’t want to do it any more.”

His career stalled after that, but he returned in the 1980s with a new group, the Acoustic Warriors, which duplicated the Hot Licks instrumentation without the female singers. In the late 1990s, he added two singers and brought back the Hot Licks name.

The band, with frequent changes in personnel, toured regularly and continued to perform occasionally in recent years when Mr. Hicks’s health allowed, most recently in December in Napa, Calif.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Hicks is survived by a stepdaughter, Sara Wasserman.

“I will always be humble to my dying day,” Mr. Hicks, tongue in cheek as usual, said when interviewed in 2013 by Roberta Donnay of the Hot Licks. “On my dying day I will explain to the world how lucky they have been to be alive the same time as me.”