Carl Gardner of The Coasters Is Gone

Carl Gardner is on the left.

Move the mouse to the Guardian obit.

Visit The Prof's other blog, Nipper and Me for some toonz.

RIP Remmy Ongala

An obituary from The Guardian here.
 
Here's a mixtape from his three best albums and his AIDS PSA "Things with Socks"  (condoms, get it?) that was banned from Tanzanian radio and became a hit nonetheless.  (Check track 6.)

REMMY ONGALA MIXTAPE

Music Playlist at MixPod.com>

Here's a video of The Doctor performing in 1988:

A Trio of Cinematic Obits

Hideko Takamine.  Read about Naruse's muse at the Daily Notebook on Mubi, and don't foget to take the link to see the Siren's tribute.

Pete Postlethwaite.  Notice in The Guardian here.

Per Oscarsson.  Mike Sragow's appreciation at his blog here.


UPDATE:  ANOTHER FILM DEATH.  Word has just reached the prof that Ann Francis has died.  Details later...

Hank Jones has died

A poet of the keyboard, with an inimitable touch, and what Giddins calls "a regal but nimble bearing." For early piano solos try the twofer that contains "The Talented Touch" and "Porgy and Bess." For tasty piano duets find "Our Delights" with the sympatico Tommy Flanagan.

Jones was a great accompanist of horns and singers as you can hear with Coleman Hawkins on "The High and Mighty Hawk" and with Ella Fitzgerald on the to-die-for "Pure Ella." Jones resurgence as an eminence gris in the last two decades meant he got a lot of opportunity to record. The recent "Kids" with Joe Lavano is bracing, but my favorite Jones is on the spirituals-only set with Charlie Haden, "Steal Away."

NYTimes obit is here.

A wonderful appreciation by Giddins in The New Yorker is here.

Featured Cut: The Ronettes, "Be My Baby"

Ellie Greenwich's obit here.
A lively article (if a little too Greil Marcusian) on the influence of the song from Warren Ellis.

Featured Cut: The Flamingos, "Golden Teardrops"

(Read the NYTimes obit here.)

from Marv Golberg's Flamingos article on his R & B site.

“We had a gentleman by the name of Bunky Redding who wrote the song, but we added a little bit here and there. [Bunkie Redding was a friend of the group; actually, he and Johnny Carter wrote the song.] We started rehearsing that song at my mother's apartment on 46th and Langley. I never will forget it. We rehearsed and we rehearsed. And we changed it and changed it and we were trying to get a beginning. And we began to put the song together like a puzzle. It took us about three months to do that song. Then we finally got it. If you listen to the background, there is very little music. It was almost a cappella. You could hear the notes, the blending of the voices. We rehearsed a long time on that song. In fact we were almost ready to give it up. We couldn't get it like we wanted to. And Johnny started bringing in that tenor and it started fitting in. And so when we felt like we were comfortable with it, we recorded it. We never sang it in public [before it was recorded]. Once we got it together, we went to the studio and recorded it. We never did pre-sing our songs to see how the audience would accept it. We rehearsed it and went to the studio.”

Les Paul has died.

Obituary here.