Sad to hear that we have also lost Hal Willner who assembled the great ‘Stay Awake, interpretations of Disney film songs’ album and tribute albums to the music of Kurt Weill to this bastard virus yesterday.
Also it went under the radar that last week former Ze Records artist Christina Zilkha died … a quite unique artist and part of the New York scene.
Very sad both of these, it worries me how many more we will lose before their time.
Yeah, and Delroy Wilson (“cool operator”).
Hal Willner? That is sad. Stay Awake is just one of his cover/tribute albums, but I love it for introducing me to Bill Frisell, and for the perfect selection of artists to cover each song from Sinead to Tom Waits. His solo album was one of the weirdest things I’d ever heard, though it seems to presage the Avalanches
He was probably the initiator of the concept of cover album tributes whereby the great and the good would clamour to take part, rather than spotty oils trying to get a leg up on the laurels of other and better artists. His most recent, or, at least, most recent well known was “Rogues Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs and Chanteys” Largely excellent fare.