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Rod who? Well, there are a few to whom the name means something, and a few more who unconsciously know of him, via his music. Cast your mind back to the late 80s, a peculiarly fertile period for roots and folk music, as the melting pot lid was firmly and fully set aside. A motley collection of folkies began to see how there were similarities and connections between disparate styles of musical evolution and expression. One such fusion begat was English Folk Dance and Reggae, with Edward 2nd & the Red Hot Polkas. There was also the slightly broader canon of Tiger Moth. A staple of both was the moustachioed splendour of Rod Stradling, earlier part of the English Country Blues Band. Whilst he retreated from E2 after their first couple of albums, that influence has lived on. Sadly, as of this week, he no longer does.

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Driving home for the last time at 74, following a short illness.

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Reports in confirm rumours that Mick Abrahams has passed away. Arguably the founder of The Mighty Tull, his vision and Ian’s were never going to last long, and I’m not of the “downhill all the way after the first album” persuasion but it’s a good piece of work all the same. I saw him guest with TMT in St. Albans some years ago and he was still belting out 70s style blues rock like a good ‘un.

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Singer of the Mavericks, aged 60, colon cancer. Whilst not a great fan of the poppier end of the Mavericks, especially that awful video in a supermarket song, Away from such commercial fare, they could be a sound outfit, with Malo one of the great vocalists, in styles all across the Southern US, from orthodox country to all the tex-mex and mex variants. Well worth looking out for are his non Mavericks collabs, in which he licks a lot of cover songs into submission.

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Master guitarist, songwriter, producer and arranger, his plectrum graces some of the leanest and perfectly honed records of all time. Never played a note too many, and all in the service of the song. RIP maestro.

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The Judge has left us at a mere 62 years of age. Fantastic batter in his pomp.

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88 – not a bad knock for someone whose intake of tabs was only surpassed by artist, David Hockey and fellow playwright Dennis Potter

Author of -among many other things – Rosencratz and Guliderstein are Dead and Jumpers on stage, plus cinematic writing or co-writing credits for the likes of Shakespeare in Love and Brazil

88 – not a bad knock for someone who

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Jimmy Cliff’s songs are among those that you almost don’t associate with a creator because they were always just there, part of the cannon of great popular song – Many Rivers to Cross, You Can Get it if You Really Want, Wonderful World, Beautiful People – none of them would be part of our internal jukeboxes without Jimmy Cliff. His family have announced that he has died due from pneumonia at the age of 81.

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Details are scant but confirmed by Ian Brown. What a horrible shock. My condolences to those who knew and loved him.

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Wonderful writer. Been making me laugh in the Observer for decades. Gone at 56 which is no age. Some lovely links to her stuff in the list below.

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From Jools Holland’s Facebook:

“I’m very sad to report that Gilson Lavis my dear friend and long-standing drummer passed away at his home in Lincolnshire last night. On behalf of my Orchestra, Squeeze, the many musicians who have worked with and befriended Gilson over the years and all the people he has supported through the AA fellowship, I send our love and sympathy to Nikki and Gilson, his dear wife and son.”

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Best known as director of Pink Floyd at Pompeii.

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Director of The War Game – banned by the BBC from being shown on TV for fully 20 years after its making in 1964 and still one of the most visceral of all what if happens films ever made.

Interestingly, a couple of years later, PW made Privilege starring the Manfred’s Paul Jones as a pop singer the government uses as a mouthpiece to sell its policies to younger voters

Just found a copy of P on Vimeo and shall give it a watch for the first time in probably 50 years

RIP Mr Watkins

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Aged 85. Incredibly prolific drummer – loved the stuff with Miles, his ECM collaborations. All my drummer mates loved him.

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Only 66

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British actress, model and member of London’s early punk scene between 1976 and 1978.

She became ill a week ago and very quickly fell into a coma which she never awoke from.

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He was 79 and hadn’t been in the best of health, I believe, so hardly a surprise. But very sad nonetheless. Along with Roger McGough and Adrien Henri he was one of the three poets in Penguin’s bestselling The Mersey Sound, published in 1967 and that book meant a lot to me in the 70s.

Just Roger, the best of them, left now.

‘So, how long does a man live after all? And how much does he live while he lives? We fret and ask so many questions – then when it comes to us the answer is so simple after all.

A man lives for as long as we carry him inside us, for as long as we carry the harvest of his dreams, for as long as we ourselves live, holding memories in common, a man lives.’

RIP

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Legend.

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Once Upon a Time in the West is one of the great Westerns.

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The world renowned Test match umpire, aged 92. What an innings he played!

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Sad to see that one of the UK’s best boxers of the 21st Century has not yet got an obit.

Sad that a man who seems to have loved people as much as they loved him struggled with so many demons towards the end of his life

RIP, Hitman

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Blancmange has essentially been a solo Neil Arthur concern for many years because Stephen Luscombe quit due to ill health back in 2011.

I can’t find any details over how he has died, but I thought he should be remembered here.

The Indian feel to some of Blancmange’s music is down to him. His side project, The West Indian Company featured Asha Bhosle among others.

Listening to Happy Families and Mange Tout, you can hear how many ideas were fizzing around. While Happy Families was a simple synth duo album. I see it as a companion to Upstairs at Eric’s. A soulful voice and great songwriting.to a couple of albums, fizzing with ideas. Mange Tout is another beast entirely, they’ve invited the rest of the band in. I revisit Mange Tout regularly and consider it an overlooked wonder.

Anyway, RIP.

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A sad end after a stellar career.

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Rather startled to learn that he was 95! If you prefer an intellectual approach rather than a “heart on sleeve” style, then Christoph von Dohnányi may have been the conductor for you. In terms of Mahler/Bruckner, he was probably the “anti-Bernstein”. Probably best known these days for recordings with the Cleveland Orchestra and the Philharmonia – not exactly a Szell clone, but with some of the same traits for precision and balance. This also made him a fine conductor of the Second Viennese School and more modern recordings.

If you only listen to one CD – then make it the Concertos for Orchestra by Bartók and Lutoslawski with the Cleveland Orchestra – a mighty fine example of what he did best.