Thinking About Merle Haggard
Merle Haggard died on his 79th birthday Wednesday and his familiar voice isn’t making me feel much better on the stereo, as he sings “Are The Good Times Really Over?”…
Remembering Paul Kantner, 1941-2016
My indelible image of Paul Kantner, the bespectacled, bookish co-pilot behind rock's psychedelic Jefferson Airplane, who died Thursday at 74, was not in the footage from Woodstock or Altamont or…
Remembering David Bowie, 1947-2016
David Bowie has been such a vital figure in the culture for so long, it was impossible for a moment to believe that he had actually died Sunday at 69…
Remembering Natalie Cole, 1950-2015
Natalie Cole, who died New Year’s Eve at 65, had a solid R&B career going before she decided to get into the kind of standards popularized by her famous father,…
Remembering B.B. King, 1925-2015
B.B. King, who died Thursday at 89, was the man who made you feel good with the blues, with a distinctive and influential guitar style, powerfully soulful voice and gentle…
Cry If You Want To: Leslie Gore, 1946-2015
One of the strong female voices in rock ’n’ roll came out of a teenager in Tenafly, N.J., whose very first hit was the anthem “It’s My Party.” “I was…
Remembering Edward Herrmann
Hearing about the death today of Edward Herrmann at 71, I imagined a slow moving funeral procession, a flag draped coffin on a caisson pulled by a team of horses.…
Remembering Joe Cocker
Joe Cocker, who died Monday at 70, was an anomaly in his era of self-expression — a charged, nuanced interpreter of others’ material who threw himself into his material…
Remembering Joan Rivers
Her career was about as long and consistently active as anyone in show business -- breaking barriers by being a very funny comedian in the 1960s and doing all she…
Robin Williams, 1951-2014
The initial reporting following the shocking death of Robin Williams Monday at 63 concentrated on the usual touchstones of "Mork & Mindy" and "Good Will Hunting" but generally ignored his…