Khia Edgerton, better known as the "Club Queen K-Swift", Baltimore DJ and radio personality, died yesterday at the age of 29 after a swimming pool accident at her home. As someone from way outside Baltimore's city limits, it's nearly impossible for me to try to capture the impact K-Swift's death has had on the community there—there have been candlelight vigils at 92Q (where she worked) and front-page stories on the local papers, as well as tributes all over the Internet.
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Natasha Shneider, who played keyboards and sang with the band Eleven and collaborated with Queens of the Stone Age and Chris Cornell, died of cancer yesterday. "She was a brilliant, beautiful, and ballsy woman who will be missed deeply by all those who knew her. Send your loving thoughts her way in the universe," wrote frequent collaborator Troy Van Leeuwen. Shneider and her husband Alain Johannes founded Eleven with former Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons in 1990, and the band recorded five albums and toured with Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Queens Of The Stone Age—all groups that members of Eleven would eventually collaborate with or join. Shneider's colorful career also included playing a cosmonaut in 2010: The Year We Make Contact and recording a song for the Catwoman soundtrack. Some clips from her career below.
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Rolling Stone is reporting that pioneering rock guitarist Bo Diddley died this morning at age 79 in Florida because of heart failure. Diddley, born Elias Bates in 1928, had been recovering from a heart attack and stroke that he suffered last year. [Rolling Stone / YouTube]
Earle Hagen, Emmy winning composer, died at the age of 88 this weekend. Hagen's name is not likely to be instantly recognized by most music fans, but as the composer of some of the most famous television themes in history, including the whistled intro to the Andy Griffith Show, his work is an indelible part of pop culture. Prior to his soundtrack career, Hagen was a part of the Ray Noble Orchestra, where he composed the jazz standard "Harlem Nocturne" (seen above). Other television themes created by Hagen include I Spy and the big band intro to the Dick Van Dyke Show, but the Andy Griffith theme was his calling card, and as memorable as nearly any piece of music from the era. [Los Angeles TImes]
Larry Levine, Phil Spector's longtime engineer, died on his 80th birthday Thursday, according to a statement released by his family. Levine's first collaboration with Spector was on the Crystals' "She's A Rebel," and the two worked together on hits by the Righteous Brothers, Darlene Love, and Ike & Tina Turner. (He was there for those Leonard Cohen and Ramones albums, too.) Outside of Phil's reach, Levine won a Grammy for his work with Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, and he had his fingers in several Eddie Cochran hits and the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds as well. Levine's primary responsibility with Spector was to indulge the producer's need for size and grandeur without letting the track collapse. Needless to say, he pulled it off more than a couple times.
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Latest by AcidReign: Mmm. The days where it had to be right, before it went to tape. (Or these days, hard drive.) Those folks did some amazing things... more »
Eddy Arnold, the debonair crooner who dominated the "countrypolitan" era of the country charts with smooth balladry and pop stylings, died yesterday at the age of 89 in Nashville.
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Chris Gaffney passed away yesterday after a battle with liver cancer. Gaffney had been a major part of the roots-rock scene in California for years, playing in Dave Alvin's post-Blasters group as well as recording several albums under his own name. Gaffney was one of those guys working a regular job and playing gigs in crappy bars at night that never really got the sort of break his talent might have merited, but in whatever theater, nightclub or dive you caught his act in, no matter what spot he was playing that night, you were going to get a great show. I knew Gaffney most for his time in the Hacienda Brothers with former Paladin Dave Gonzalez, who had set up a base of sorts in my hometown of Tucson. The Hacienda Brothers played a ton of gigs there, and seemed to be making a move towards some sort of notoriety outside of the southwestern circuit they were loyal to, but his illness made that sort of fame impossible again. Gaffney, a hard-working, talented, unassuming guy and great musician, was 58, and there's a site to help cover his truly ridiculous medical bills. [HelpGaff]
Latest by Ned Raggett: Read about this this morning -- very sad news, especially since he lived in the same town as me; I knew his name more than his music but he always sounded like an all right guy, and it's a shame more »
E Street Band keyboardist/accordionist Danny Federici passed away Thursday after a three-year battle with melanoma. Federici, a New Jersey native, had played with Bruce Springsteen since the late 1960s. In November, the band announced that he was taking leave from its tour to receive treatment for melanoma, but he returned for a few shows last month. (The Bruce Springsteen shows scheduled for this weekend were postponed shortly after the announcement of Federici's death.) Federici was 58. [AP]
Latest by tigerpop: @Thierry: re: transcendent tribute.
The Albany show, Danny's second-to-last full show with the band, was exactly that: They played "both Sandy" and "E Street Shuffle" that night. What a loss. more »
Robert "Syke Dyke" Reed, singer/keyboardist for Washington, D.C. go-go pioneers Trouble Funk, died Sunday night of pancreatic cancer. The band was most famous for their 1982 album, Drop The Bomb, and hits like "Pump Me Up," "Hey Fellas," and "Trouble Funk Express." [Black Plastic Bag / YouTube]
Wayne "Frosty Freeze" Frost, a member of the Rock Steady Crew who was featured in both Wild Style and Style Wars and who helped bring breakdancing to the pop-cultural mainstream when he showed off his moves in Flashdance, died in New York City earlier this week of an undisclosed long illness. After the jump, an excerpt from a 1983 New York Timesinterview with Frost in which he talks about his moves.
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Klaus Dinger, the often-imitated drummer for Krautrock band Neu!, died of heart failure on March 21; Billboard notes that Dinger's death was not "widely publicized" until Neu!'s record label finally issued a statement today.
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R.I.P. Sean LeVert
Sean LeVert, the brother of the late Gerald LeVert and the son of O'Jays lead singer Eddie LeVert, passed away after being transported from the Cuyahoga County Jail to a Cleveland-area hospital last night, according to reports. LeVert, who was a member of the R & B group that shared his last name and had the crossover hit "Casanova," was apparently in jail because he owed about $80,000 in child support. He was 39. [WKYC.com / Photo: AP]
Longtime Beatles associate Neil Aspinall, who left his post as the CEO of Apple Corps last year, has passed away, according to a statement from the surviving members of the band. "As a loyal friend, confidant and chief executive, Neil's trusting stewardship and guidance has left a far-reaching legacy for generations to come. All his friends and loved ones will greatly miss him but will always retain the fondest memories of a great man," the statement read. Aspinall was 66. [Times Online / Photo: AP]
Mikey Dread—the Jamaican producer and DJ renown for his decades-long devotion to spreading reggae, dub, and dancehall—passed away in Connecticut on Saturday following a year-long battle with a brain tumor. Yet another Jamaican engineering student drawn to the country's pop scene, Michael Campbell's "Dread At The Controls" show on JBC radio quickly became essential listening during reggae's '70s heyday, so much so that word of Dread's reputation soon reached reggae fans who had never even stepped onto the island; the show's grass-roots appeal at home and abroad helped launch his own influential career as an artist and producer after unsuccessfully wrangling with JBC higher-ups over his dub-focused playlists.
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Latest by Oldboy: That's "renowned" BTW.... more »
Canadian blues guitarist Jeff Healey, best known south of the border for his 1989 hit "Angel Eyes," died yesterday after a lifelong battle with retinal cancer that rendered him blind when he was a baby and eventually spread to the rest of his body. Healey was 41; his final album and first in eight years, Mess Of Blues, will be released in Canada and the U.S. next month. [National Post]
Mike Smith, the singer and keyboard player for '60s British rockers the Dave Clark Five, died of pneumonia this morning outside of London. According to a statement from his manager, the infection was "a complication from a spinal cord injury he sustained in September, 2003 that left him a tetraplegic (paralyzed below the ribcage with limited use of his upper body)." Sadly, Smith will now have to be posthumously inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame with the rest of the Five in less than two weeks, an event he was still planning to attend despite a four year hospitalization and ongoing medical problems stemming from his injury. The Dave Clark Five shook their mops through a memorable 18 month run on the American Top 10 between the spring of 1964 and December of 1965, scoring at least six smashes during the high moment of the British Invasion and enjoying success on both sides of the Atlantic through the late '60s before breaking up in 1970. Smith was 64. [Velvet Rope/Rolling Stone]
Latest by DaeSu: Mike Smith had a helluva voice, arguably the best and most soulful of the British Invasion bands. I'm gonna dig out my DC5 compilation "Glad All Over Again" (on vinyl!) and crank it up. RIP. more »
Drummer Buddy Miles, drummer for Jimi Hendrix during the guitarist's turbulent but creatively fertile final years, died yesterday. A prodigious youth spent drumming alongside his father in the Bebops led to Miles scoring apprentice gigs with R&B and soul acts like the Delfonics; as a twentysomething, he unleashed the decidedly heavier rhythms of Electric Flag with guitarist Mike Bloomfield before the band's dissolution led to the self-explanatory Buddy Miles Experience. Miles' Experience eventually recorded an album with the leader of another Experience behind the boards, and after Miles repaid the favor by contributing to Hendrix's breakthrough Electric Ladyland, the guitarist tapped the drummer full-time in 1969 for his new rhythm section alongside bassist Billy Cox.
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Latest by JDR: "Live at the Fillmore East" is a great album. Mile and Cox together with Hendrix was a great line-up that didn't get to go far enough (career-wise). more »
Sad news for R&B fans today: Steve "Static Major" Garrett—close songwriting collaborator with Timbaland during his first creative flush, renowned producer in his own right, and member of Idolator fave Playa—died yesterday at 32. Causes are unknown at the moment, though AllHipHop is reporting "sources" as saying that Garrett suffered a cerebral aneurysm. Garrett would have earned his soul stripes if only for contributing to the creamy harmonies to Playa's "Don't Stop The Music" and penning the single-entendre lyrics to Ginuwine's indelible robo-slow jam "Pony," but he was also responsible (with buddy Timbaland) for a string of Aaliyah singles from "Are You That Somebody?" to "Rock The Boat" that stand as one of the most fertile urban radio runs of the last decade. In addition to his decade's worth of big name collaborations, Garrett had finally planned to release his first solo album, Suppertime, later this year, and hopefully the album won't disappear into the major label ether in a belt-tightening era when even artists who are alive to promote their records find themselves shelved indefinitely. [AllHipHop; HT: Al Shipley]
Idolator
Khia Edgerton, better known as the "Club Queen K-Swift", Baltimore DJ and radio personality, died yesterday at the age of 29 after a swimming pool accident at her home. As someone from way outside Baltimore's city limits, it's nearly impossible for me to try to capture the impact K-Swift's death has had on the community there—there have been candlelight vigils at 92Q (where she worked) and front-page stories on the local papers, as well as tributes all over the Internet.
More »
Sean LeVert, the brother of the 
