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Obituaries 2022

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Dennis O’Dell, Producer of most of the Beatles movies at the ripe old age of 98

Oddly, was just watching episode 2 of Peter Jackson’s wonderful Get Back (on which he gets a Supervising Producer credit) when I read of his death on the Ucunt website

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    • ‘What’s Up,Doc?’ Barbra Streisand, Ryan O’Neal, Madeleine Khan and Kenneth Mars.

      His 1974 comedy homage to the Cary Grant screwballs of days gone by.

      Get it watched.

    • Whilst Bogdanovich produced plenty of great work of his own, he pops up on so many blu rays, providing commentaries for other films, interviewing other directors or speaking about the films in the ‘making of’ documentaries, etc. He would definitely be my phone a friend, should a tough film question crop up, as he must have been a walking cinema encyclopaedia.

  6. Bill Bryden Scottish stage and film director and screenwriter.
    Worked with the Albion Band and Home Service among others. Lark Rise, The Mysteries and The Ship, I travelled to Govan to see The Ship, a stunning piece of theatre and an interesting time in Govan!

  13. Koady Chaisson, a founding member of Canadian roots trio The East Pointers died on 6th Jan, aged I think 37, maybe 38. Cause of death not released. He was a fine banjo player, also played tenor guitar and some synthesiser. They toured the UK several times and I saw them in Oct 2017 at HOME in Manchester when they were on a triple bill with Jackie Oates and headliners The Young ‘Uns. They were due back in Manchester next month. It’s shocking to lose anyone so young

  14. Burke Shelley, bass and vocals with Welsh band, Budgie, has died. I will dig out the band’s first album, ‘Budgie’, from 1971, later. He seems to have been a very nice man who suffered illness for the last 10 or so years.

  18. Jean-Jacques Beineix of Diva and Betty Blue fame.

    Career seemed to have tailed off after Roselyne and
    The Lions in about 1990, but Diva is tres formidable

  21. John Rendell, the Aussie expat who briefly kept a lion in Chelsea in the early
    70s and went back to Africa to reunite with him after releasing him into the wild
    a year later).

    Be warned, there will be dust in the air!

    Full video about the whole story

    Short video of the reunion in Kenya

  22. Ken Essex – the viola player who famously played the descending notes on The Beatles Yesterday (he also did the feem choon for Fawlty Towers.

    Lived to a ripe old age, too – 101

  23. Barry Cryer, a man with one of the longest and most distinguished British comedy careers of them all, and yet never stopped being interested in what was new and current in his field, has died at the age of 86. A full life which brought a great deal of joy to many.

  24. A friend and I saw him outside the Players Theatre, just under Charing Cross station, years ago.

    ISIHAC fans both, we nudged each other but decided not to bother the man.

    It was only later that night we decided we ought to have asked him ‘I’m sorry I haven’t a clue how to find the station. Could you help?

    It was only later the following morning we decided that would have been a bloody terrible gag and were pleased he never found out how unfunny we so nearly were with one of our heroes.

  25. Craig McGregor, social commentatator and music critic. I have read a lot of his stuff. His early writings on Dylan were top of the field. When a young turk he wrote a piece in a Sydney paper on Dylan who was touring in 66. Dylan was impressed and invited him up to his hotel room with Robbie ,Grossman there too.
    He played him the acetates to Blonde On Blonde and asked his opinion. Very positive but said he thought Just Like A Woman was overly sentimental. Grossman hit the roof, Dylan took it in.
    Craig was right.

    https://www.echo.net.au/2022/01/vale-craig-mcgregor-1933-2022/

  29. Glenn Wheatley played bass in the second iteration of one of Australia’s greatest bands, The Masters Apprentices. Their Choice Cits album, recorded at Abbey Road deserved more success than it got at the time.
    He then went onto band management Farnham, Little River Band etc then concert promotion , FM radio stations and made a lot of money.
    He got done on tax evasion , one of the few to be jailed after confidential accountants papers got exposed. Paul Hogan was another but be kept out of the big house.
    By all accounts a nice bloke, double vaxxed he died of COVID at 74.

  30. Monica Vitti, 91, one of those Italian actresses who set the pulses of teenage boys racing in the 60s, along with Sophia Loren, Virna Lisi and Gina Lollobrigida. She was associated with Antonionionioni, but Modesty Blaise was pretty cool too.

    • A friend of mine has just posted this.
      RIP Lata Mangeshkar (Lata Ji)
      Today is sad day for all Indian Music lovers. When she sang I didn’t just hear the words, I felt the emotion and it stayed with me, ever since I fell in love with her voice from about 8 years old. Her songs allowed me to get over some turbulent moments in life, and hers songs and voice were very comforting.
      “Inna Lillahe Wainna elahihe rajeoon.”

  36. RIP Betty Davis. Terrifying funk singer, who would have eaten you alive, also was wife to Miles Davis for a time. Was he the muse which sparked her song “He Was A Big Freak”? I hope so.

    • I can’t believe I missed this – spotted it today on the Beeb website.
      Contribution to the first KC album has probably been under-rated with time: and the McDonald and Giles album is a wee gem.
      RIP

  39. PJ O’Rourke, a writer who could make me laugh and even nod along even when I disagreed with him, has died from lung cancer at the age of 74.

  41. Derek ‘Del the Draw’ Hussey has died in his sleep. He was friend of Ian Dury’s, and when Dury died he took over singing duties with The Blockheads. The core of their set was still those fantastic Dury songs of course, but Del also wrote lyrics for new songs and recorded the album Same Horse Different Jockey with the band.

  43. Procul Harum website has announced the passing of Gary Brooker on 19th Feb, aged 76. He had been undergoing medical treatment for a while. He was a founder member of Procul Harum in 1966, and was the front man of that band right up to the end. That’s a 55 year career with one outfit!

  46. Anna Karen. Best known as Olive from On the Buses. 85 in a house fire

    Always seemed to be appearing in the red tops under His like “You won’t believe how sexy drab Olive from On The Buses looks off duty” over pix of the luckless Ms K warning a mini-skirt but otherwise looking exactly as she did on OTB

    RIP, Anna

    • She wasn’t too luckless, arriving in London just before Rock ‘n’ Roll… I’d call that lucky.
      Not sure I’d want to live in Ilford in 2022, mind.

      Wikipedia shows work with Kenneth Williams, Dick Emery, an appearance in “Poor Cow,” but where do you go after On The Buses? – the biggest draw at the cinema box office in Britain in 1971 than anything else including a James Bond film! She is arguably the most famous figure in sit-com history.

      Ironically, if a tabloid ever did ask (and they did) where did it all go wrong (if, in her case, it might have), I’d answer: “Nothing to do with Anna, erm… the rise and rise of the tabloids in the early 1970s.”

  47. @deramdaze

    On that basis,DD, she’d actually be the sixth most famous figure in sitcom history.

    Reg Varney, Doris Hare, Stephen Lewis and Bob Grant are all billed ahead of AK
    on the poster for this comedic Citizen Kane

    The most luckless one of the lot was poor old Bob Grant who was so typecast as Reg’s chirpy best mate that he hardly ever worked again. Think he also had serious mental health issues and possibly ended up taking his own life.

    • Damn, I liked him. There’s a good conversation series with him on YouTube. Sound Of The Suburbs and the 12″ of Offshore Banking Business are obviously classics, but I also really liked the “1980 – The Choice Is Yours” album. The song Clean Men is on my favourites playlist.

      • Agreed

        • I just posted Offshore Banking Business elsewhere but I also was struck by the similarities of Sound of the Suburbs and Pleasant Valley Sunday. Definitely should be marked next week on Stereo Underground.

    • My favourite Members song was So;itary Confinement, “buy yourself this record” was a great line.

      He also made a really good rap record with J Walter Negro – Cost Of Living

      • Second band I ever saw, The Members (Durham 1979), and as several above have said, so much more than a one song band. Three excellent albums, I’m saying. This, from their third, is a cracker. May you rest well, NT.

  50. Caught Marsh, bowled Lillee. Such a common sight on the scoreboard it was the title of a biography.
    Rod Marsh probably a key element in the ugly Australians of the Chappelli era. But he was a good keeper and a very handy lower order bat. He used to soak his hands in brine to toughen them for the pounding of keeping to Thomson and Lillee.

    https://www.theage.com.au/national/rodney-marsh-a-great-gloveman-who-became-part-of-nation-s-folklore-20220302-p5a0yz.html?btis

    • Sorry to see him go. The early 70s Aussie teams are my earliest cricketing memory and were far, far more entertaining than the team I was meant to be supporting. Marsh was a key personality and a great player.

      • In my mind, Rod Marsh is always “Rod Marsh” and not “Rodney Marsh”, so I don’t get him accidentally confused with the 1970s flamboyant, long-haired, deaf-in-one-ear, playboy forward for QPR, Man. City and Fulham.

  51. Let’s not forget that Rodders also smashed Doug Walter s 44 cans of beer on the flight from Sydney to London by seven tinnies before being himself outdrank by David Boon (52 cans) not long after

    • Sad news, just read it on Facebook, enjoyed his writings on Van Morrison and until very recently he posted a fair bit about him on a Van Facebook group.

  56. Jeremy Kyle’s Career.

    Stunning evisceration of JK and his show’s treatment of the not terribly bright people who queued up to be publicly ridiculed on air for 14 years.

  57. William Hurt. I only saw him in 3 films – Kiss of the Spider Woman and Children of A Lesser God, and then much later The Big Chill, but he made a powerful impression as an actor. A great screen presence.

  61. Denise Coffey, appeared in Do Not Adjust Your Set and later was Mrs E in Sir Henry at Rawlison End.

    Mrs E : Yes?
    Sir Henry : I don’t know what I want, but I want it now!
    Mrs E : Fried or fried, dear?
    Sir Henry : Now!
    Mrs E : Fried?
    Sir Henry : I want my meat burned like Saint Joan.

    • She was great. I remember seeing her on Stanley Baxter’s tv shows at the tail end of the 60s – I might even have seen her in panto with SB at the King’s Theatre in Glasgow round about then…I seem to recall she was dressed as a Christmas pudding (although the memory is not what it once was…).

  62. Garry Leach, ace UK comics artist – so devoted to the craft it’s said he lived on cornflakes when doing the art for the first Marvelman episodes in “Warrior”.

  67. Andy Wickham, Brit born WEA exec who played a major role in bringing – among many others – Van M, Neil Y and Joni M to warners

    Excellent obit in today’s Times:

    “I introduced myself to Dennis Wilson by saying how much I had liked his father. This was the first and only time I have ever been punched by an artist,” Wickham recalled.

  68. David McKee, creator of Mr Benn and Elmer the Elephant among others, has died at the good age of 87.

    Mr Benn in particular was a huge part of my childhood, and when we were in Putney for a gig at the Half Moon we visited Festing Road so see where he ‘lived’. A couple of years I realised that all the creators whom I loved in childhood were reaching the ends of their lives, so I wrote to some of them to say thank you while I still had time. David McKee sent a charming letter back, and wrote that as I had mentioned shows at the Half Moon his favourite there had been Dr John. That could have been a great outfit for the shopkeeper to lend Mr Benn!

  70. Ken West – Aussie promoter who with Vivian Lees created the Big Day Out caravan of acts that would tour Australia, has died peacefully in his sleep.
    BDO, famously got Nirvana just as they erupted, headlined The Bad Seeds when Aussie promoters wouldnt , took on the mainstream promoters with a slew of top notch second tier acts like the Fall and profoundly influenced a generation of kids too young to get into licensed venues.

    • Chris Bailey , wonderful lead singer of the Saints has died. And here I am in Brisbane where they started.
      Never saw them in their pomp but saw them reformed for a Nick Cave curated festival, saw him guest with Nick at a concert doing that song from Nocturama and saw him with a bunch of young Swedish tyros at an inner Sydney pub. Excellent every time.

      As fate would have it Ed Kuepper recently posted this.

  74. Johnny Depp’s career.

    Jesus, didn’t the guy learn anything from the libel case he lost in London?

    Whoever “wins” this case, he’ll be finished as a tentpole actor

    • Rising Damp is fantastic. Never seems to get mentioned on shows like ‘Bestest Sitcoms, Like, Ever’ but it’s way better than most that finish high up those lists. I recorded them off the telly when they repeated them in the early 90s and watched them loads. Best episodes are the one with Peter Bowles, the one with the boxing match between Rigsby and Philip and the one where they all go to the Grange. In fact, I’m gonna dig the DVD out and show my son the boxing one and see if I can still remember all the lines.

  79. Neil Adams, comic book illustrator, writer, and all round good guy.

    He reinvented Batman. He dragged comics kicking and screaming into the real world with Hard Travellling Heroes I & II. He created one of Batman’s greatest foes. All the Green Arrow stuff we see nowadays – that’s him.

    Not only that, but he fought and won pension rights for Siegel and Shuster as well as rights for creators, and helped get Frank Miller off the booze.

    You may never have heard of him, but at some stage you’ve probably seen his work or the effects of his work.

    • To me, Neil Adams is the best ever comic illustrator. He has “a look” but I’ve never been able to explain what it is. Is it the fine line? But through Batman, X-men, Deadman, etc, his look was unmistakeable. Hope somebody can help me understand.

      • Underground cartoonist Justin Green was also promoted to glory this week. In his own way he dragged comics kicking and screaming into the real world too, with 1972’s “Binky Brown Meets The Holy Virgin Mary” paving the way for the autobiographical comic genre.

      • There’s a dynamism in his characters that was missing from previous artists. His characters also weren’t Liefeldesque muscle mountains but actually looked like human beings in peak physical condition.

        That, and his use of lighting.

  82. Safe onward travels to drummer Ric Parnell, who played for Atomic Rooster, supplied to the drums to Toni Basil’s Mickey and many others but will live forevermore as Mick Shrimpton of the mighty Spinal Tap.

  84. RIP Dennis Waterman. S

    Probably best known for
    The Sweeney, Minder and New Tricks

    Surprisingly only 74. Thought he was much older
    as he’d been around forever after starting out as
    RIchmal Crompton’s William while still very young

    Be interesting to hear what (if anything) Rula Lenska has to say

  86. I was really sad to hear he’s gone. When Minder reappeared without him, it is clear that the show’s success was all about his interaction with George Cole. Like Eric without Ern, if you will.

    On the Up was fascinating because it had everything you’d want in a comedy set up but fell flat. A good cast and some good jokes but it was an excruciating watch. Arrgh.

    New Tricks was a really good late run for him – a really entertaining show with the strongest cast I can remember for anything. His theme tune was, surely, challenged for copyright by the Traveling Wilburys.

    • Ah yes, the theme songs. Surprised Dennis couldn’t cheat death by negotiating to sing at his own funeral. Relevant to these boards, his singing meant he was on Top Of The Pops “more often than we were”.
      And then the men who was George Carter turned up in this video for Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine

      • Starred in Up the Junction, of course, and what a soundtrack.

        Minder took a long time to get going (see: Only Fools and Horses, Red Dwarf) but when it hit its stride – about 20/30 episodes – it was great… and then, in the last Waterman series it starting showing its age, and the less said about the other ones the better… they were awful (see: Only Fools and Horses, Red Dwarf).

        • Oddly enough, just finished watching the entire run of Arthur and Terry minders on YT while doing my 25 mins on the rowing machine.

          Aside from the dodgy attitudes, the shows have held up very well. Gave up after one episode of post-Terry Minder. Essentially Terry moves ‘ooop North, DW’s Stay Lucky got similarly short shrift

              • Similar time stamp for hour long shows on ITV – usually between 50 and 52 minutes.
                The Sweeney (also Euston Films) was to be 48 minutes plus 3 minute teaser before opening credits

                Every writer on the series was given very specific guidelines to follow: “Each show will have an overall screen time (minus titles) of 48 minutes 40 seconds. Each film will open with a teaser of up to 3 minutes, which will be followed by the opening titles. The story will be played across three acts, each being no more than 19 minutes and no fewer than 8 minutes in length. Regan will appear in every episode, Carter in approximately 10 out of 13 episodes. In addition to these main characters, scripts should be based around three major speaking parts, with up to ten minor speaking parts.”[2]

                • As per above, you could get one episode of most UK TV shows in over two days.

                  Currently watching Cracker where most episodes run to approx 100 or 150 mins.

                  Like M, the show has held up very well – mainly because of Jimmy McG’s wonderful scripts and the pitch perfect casting

  90. Andrew Symons was an Aussie cricketer. Attacking bat , effective bowler and remarkable fielder as this YouTube clip will show.
    His career was some 5 years shorter than it should have been , soured by racist taunts from Indian supporters and, allegedly, some players. Monkeygate saw the Australian Cricket Board fail to take a stand against the ICB and in the eyes of many Tendulkar showed himself to be a lesser man in failing to call his teammates out.
    He died in a car accident. Seems it ran off a country road late at night.
    https://youtu.be/hFi778AoeRY

  92. Ricky Gardner 73 after a long battle with Parkinsons

    Superb guitar parts on Bowie’s Low and Iggy’s The Idiot and formerly with Beggars Opera.

    While an awful disease whoever it strikes, Parkinsons must be a thousand times more agonizing for someone whose hands produced such sublime music

    Remember him this way

    Or this way

    WTF will give him a thread on the main page. He deserves it

  96. Long time Dylan sideman and sidekick, Bob(by) Neurwith.

    At Dylan’s back on the cover of H61R in the mid-60s,
    and next to him onstage for most of the RTR a decade
    or so later

    Also infuential in the careers of PattiSmith and Janis Joplin
    For whom he wrote Mercedses-Benz.

    When i worked in HK in the mid-1990s, I wrote ads for MB and
    created the first TV commercial which used JJ’s song (a cover
    Rather than the original as the client was appalled by Joplin’s
    Voice

      • My mastering engineer chum worked with him at the Beeb. It doesn’t seem that long ago Cathal playing a gig, where my chum was introduced to Erin Moran, who was also in the audience. I didn’t go, of course – school night in That London. Kicking myself now.

    • I’m in complete shock – this was totally unexpected news with Telefís in full swing I only mentioned last month that music was in a better place when CC was back in the frame. I will miss him. Anybody who hasn’t checked out the Telefís album please do – it’s as good a quality project as he has ever been involved with.

    • Was a hugely into Fatima Mansions for a while but I lost touch after Valhalla Avenue and I’ve not really heard anything since (or Microdisney before). So yet again it takes someone’s sadly young death to remind me to investigate. Has to stop happening. Microdisney are already sounding great, right up my 80s jangle street. And I see Fatima Mansions are finally on Spotify so I’ll be heading back there too.

  98. Jesus, that is sad news. 61 is no age at all.

    Only a couple of years since I saw him, Sean and the rest of the superb and criminally under-rated Microdisney play their second last gig at Dublin’s Vicar Street.

    Crooked Mile remains one of my favorite albums ever and Clock is not far behind.

    One of those bands who coulda, woulda, shoulda sold massive amnounts of records but instead got mases amounts of love

    Remember him and his “barbed wire rainbows” this way

    Thanks, Max, btw, for the heads up re the Telefis album. Will order it as soon as I stop typing.

    • I saw the Fatimas at Kings Tuts, round about “Evil Man.” This was just after the Good Friday agreement was signed. He came onstage with a toy keyboard which he had had programmed to say “Ulster Says No, Ulster Says No” over and over again, and grinned like a loon. I thought he was brilliant.

  99. Grandmaster Gareth (born Gareth Jones), lead singer with Birmingham indie band Misty’s Big Adventure passed away on the 15th of May at the age of 41. They made some great records including this swipe of the “bland age” of landfill indie-

    • 41 – that is no age at all. Celeb fan Dave Gorman will be upset.

      AW pedant point: I didn’t know The Pictures On My Wall was ever released on 12″. One pressing in 1991, apparently.

  100. Ray Liotta has died in his sleep while filming on location. He was only 67, so a heart attack seems the most likely reason. His most celebrated performance will always be Goodfellas of course, but my favourite is Something Wild for the huge mood swing the film takes when his character, also called Ray, appears.

    • Jesus, that’s awful a few months older than me.

      Always worth watching movies with him in.

      Too often of late, he was sadly the only reason worth
      watching them.

  103. Lester Piggott – legendary flat jockey and apparently a big favorite with the Queen and Queen Mum despite doing his best to avoid coughing up his fair share of taxes.

  105. Ronnie ‘The Hawk’ Hawkins passed away a couple of days ago at 87. He took several musicians through their apprenticeship, The Band, Roy Buchanan…

    Also, Steve Broughton, brother of Edgar and drummer with the Edgar Broughton Band. Gone too soon at 72.

  106. Kelly Joe Phelps great guitarist and a bit of quixotic figure who withdrew from it all.
    Aussie guitarist Jeff Lang posted this on Facebook.

    Very sad to wake up to the news that Kelly Joe Phelps has died.
    I first met Kelly Joe when we shared a bill at the Silver Dollar Room in Toronto, must’ve been around 1997 or so. I was immediately floored by his quietly virtuosic playing and his hypnotic songs, rich with poetic imagery.
    I caught up with him again when he first came out to Australia to play at Bluesfest a year later.
    The opportunity arose for me to open for him on a couple of weeks of shows in the States in 2002 and our friendship solidified. Alison and I shared many laughs on the road with Kelly Joe on that run. He was there when I bought our wedding rings and the three of us stayed in a bar in Cedar Rapids Iowa celebrating long into the night. Alison ran his sound at each show, and I sat in the audience marvelling at the way his ideas tumbled freely out of him, seemingly endless and always deeply soulful.
    He was still playing lap steel at this point and he was one of the best, with a wonderful touch and a purring tone. That run of shows together ended on a cold night on the edge of winter in Cleveland, where Kelly Joe invited me to play with him in his set. There’s no recording of this, but it was a memorable half hour of exploration.
    When Alison and I checked into the motel later that night I discovered a surprise in the breast pocket of my jacket, in the form of some money he’d left for Alison in acknowledgment of her work for him on the desk. We hadn’t expected this, Alison had offered her services, and knowing we’d hear him mixed well every night was something we welcomed. It was wrapped in a sweet note holding words of solidarity and respect. I thought I’d lost that note, but it turned up, lined and creased, in the accrued detritus of my suitcase. In it he thanked us for “two weeks of actually being glad I’m a musician.”
    I keep that note in my studio, a little talisman from one of the most masterful musicians and remarkable people I’ve known.
    Kelly Joe had some demons, for sure, and he struggled with them. He could also be determinedly contrary, the most obvious example of which being his abandonment of playing lap slide. The more people begged him to pick that instrument up again the more he’d refuse. But he always had the same spirit shot through everything he played. He didn’t make any dud records, but give his albums Roll Away The Stone, Shine Eyed Mister Zen or Brother, Sinner And The Whale a listen then enjoy the journey through his work. It won’t let you down.
    Alison and I always enjoyed catching up with Kelly Joe. It was always way too long before we had the chance, but it’d invariably be like it’d only been a week since we’d seen him, once we did. And it saddens me greatly that it’ll happen no more. The last show I saw of his was at the Caravan Music club when it was in Oakleigh. It was one of the best I witnessed, culminating in a version of the old folk song The Waggoner’s Lad, which was spellbinding and profoundly moving. I mentioned that one to him after the show and he said “Yeah man, I was thinking ‘Me and Jeff are taking a walk around inside this one’”. What a sweetheart. My thoughts go out to his family. Travel on my friend.

  107. I’d never heard of him, but Mrs KFD was sad to hear that troubadour, Thorstein Bergman, had passed away. He was very big back in the day. I suspect that @Locust knows him.

    Listening now on Spotify. Excellent music for a Sunday morning: he had a very fine voice.

    It’s Sweden, Jim. But not as I know it.

    • Well, he’s one of the names that were unavoidable growing up in the 70s, hearing his songs on radio and TV and probably singing some of them in school or choir too.
      But I can’t say that I have the kind of attachment to his music that would make me feel especially sad that he’s died – in fact, had you asked me last month I’d probably have guessed that he’d been dead for a while!

  108. RIP Ken Kelly, the artist behind some truly ridiculous metal album covers; Kiss’s “Destroyer,” Rainbow’s “Rising” and no less than six Manowar covers!

    Sadly I cannot post art but do look up “Death To False Metal” by Manowar if you want a giggle.

    • They were quite groovy back in the day. My then girlfriend, now GLW for 45 years had a copy of Diamond Girl and we played it a lot. Interesting that they followed the Bahai faith and never lost it. And here’s a fab pop fact, Jim’s brother was the Dan out of England Dan & John Ford Coley

  111. Artist Paula Rego has died at the age of 87. If you’re not familiar with her intense, haunting images the just Google ‘Paula Rego paintings’. The images will stay with you long after you have shut down the screen.

  112. Julee Cruise has died. I’m a huge fan of Twin Peaks and her vocals added another ethereal layer to Badalamenti’s soundtrack. I hadn’t realised she stood in for Cindy touring with the B52s in the 90s.

  114. Billy Bingham has died. He had a good career as a footballer in the 50s but his greatest achievements were as the manager of the Northern Ireland team that got to two World Cup finals in the 80s under his leadership. He was also a member of the team when they got to the finals back in 1958. One of Northern Ireland’s greatest sporting heroes. Glory days.

    • One of the weirdest NI accents ever, though. It’s funny how the handful of 60s/70s public figures from NI all had excruciatingly atypical (for the region) accents – Ian Paisley’s hectoring Victorian fire-and-brimstonery, Alex Higgins’ slightly camp, sniffling Bond villain twang, Van Morrison’s mid Atlantic roar, Bill Bingham’s effete Malone Road/BBC Northern Ireland oddness… And then there was that berk from Coronation Street, whose dialogue/accent was pure pantomime so it was, so it was…

  115. Paul Seibel
    A friend posted this on FB. I’ve just discovered that the great singer/ songwriter Paul Siebel died in april. Most people wouldnt know his few albums – ‘woodsmoke and oranges’ 1970 ( his masterpiece) , ‘Jacknife Gypsy’ the following year and then a ten year wait for a live album and that was it. Barely a footnote in the Elektra catalogue but a writer of songs that scores of other artists recorded – ‘Louise’ being his most ‘well known.’ Gave away music too quickly when his muse dried. Dave Bromberg was his guitarist which says a lot about Siebel’s talent. Have a listen to ‘My Town’ from ‘’Woodsmoke…” It could have been written yesterday about the last few years in the USA…then listen to the rest of the album.He was 84.

    • Thanks for posting this, Mr Wells. I hadn’t heard.
      I’m a big fan of “Woodsmoke and Oranges” and “Jack-Knife Gypsy”, which I have on one of those two-for-one CDs. My favourite song of his is “Then Came the Children”
      A fine songwriter; excellent voice.
      RIP, Mr Siebel.

    • A great player, a great, great player, once that team hung up their boots I drifted away from the sport.
      Will Carling et al seemed, and still do, small beer.

      About the number of caps won – in the English R.F.U. Centenary Book of 1971 there’s a list at the back of all the players capped up until that point, and I think only one had more than 30 caps – the R.F.U. were very stingy with handing out caps, and many games would be described as “England XV” fixtures and so did not result in being awarded one.
      When the French were black-balled either side of the war, an English or Welsh international usually had only three opportunities per season to win a cap – with no substitutes, that’s 45 for all of them!

      … but they played a lot of club and Representative rugby… I was talking to a player of Bennett’s age at the weekend and, as he played for a seaside club which was a popular venue for touring sides, he remembered fixture lists in September and around Easter where players, often the same XV, would play on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

      I think I’m right in saying that Jack Nowell has never played for Cornwall.

      • Now there are about 12 international fixtures a year not including World Cup years, You are right that in Bennett’s day one might only get 4 caps a year, they didn’t tour every year, and there were less autumn fixtures and games against Fiji, Japan may not have counted as full internationals. Bennett also had to wait a while to start his international career as a certain Barry John held the position before him, if he hadn’t retired at 27 then Bennett would have got even fewer caps

  118. I was sad to read just now that the comic book artist Tim Sale has died, aged 66. He drew two of my favourite Batman stories, The Long Halloween and Dark Victory. Funnily enough, me and the boy were going to watch the animated movie of The Long Halloween this evening, until his PS4 won out. The book was a big influence on the films The Dark Knight and the recent film, The Batman.

  122. I didn’t see it mentioned here but guitarist Dennis Cahill passed away June 20th. I wasn’t very familair with his playing apart from hearing some tracks from The Gloaming on radio, but I remember that group have been mentioned favourably on The AW a couple of times…

    • Only found this out myself last night. Told from the stage by Ryan Young, a gifted young man clearly in thrall to Martin Hayes, to whom Cahill was a foil both in a duo and in The Gloaming. Never underrate the gift of the loyal accompanist, adding harmonic depths while the virtuoso fiddler takes flight; I’ve seen so many partnerships like that.
      I shall be very sorry if this means we never see again The Gloaming in any form.

    • Dennis was a great fellow – wry, amusing, good company in a quiet way. No words wasted. The Martin & Dennis duo of the 90s was the high point for me – I saw the Gloaming once but it wasn’t for me. The magic of the duo was, for me, diluted. But it made them more successful, it seems – and everything has to evolve.

      Here’s a solo piece Dennis very kindly recorded for me for a charity project in 2004.

    • Lovely story about AG from his autobiog from football365

      Rangers legend Goram told the story in his autobiography of how he joined United from Motherwell in March 2001 on a three-month loan.

      “When I had three months of my contract left, they let it be known that I wouldn’t be offered another one. I was knackered. Miriam and I were together at the time and she was driving me to training one day when my phone rang. Coisty. It was 9.30am and I thought he must be coming in from a night on the batter. Ally never phones you in the morning. We blethered, and I shrugged it off and went into training.

      “At lunchtime on the way home the phone rang again. Walter Smith. He was manager of Everton at the time and warned me to keep my phone on because someone was going to ring me. ‘What is it, gaffer? You got a job for me?’ I asked. ‘Just keep your f*cking phone on,’ he growled. Now I was starting to wonder what was going on. I suspected I was about to get the piss taken out of me.

      ‘Two minutes later, the phone rang again. ‘Goalie, it’s Alex Ferguson here. We’ve got Bayern Munich on Wednesday and Liverpool at the weekend. Fabian Barthez is injured and Raimond van der Gouw is struggling. I need you to come down on loan until the end of the season.’

      ‘I said: ‘Coisty, f*** off’. And put the phone down. Ally could do Sir Alex perfectly. I wasn’t falling for that old one. The phone rang again and I told Miriam to answer it this time. ‘Miriam, this is Alex Ferguson, and you can tell that fat b*stard he’s got ten seconds to say aye or naw.’’
      That fat b*stard never featured against Bayern or Liverpool but the 37-year-old did play two games during United’s run-in.

  125. Alan Blaikely, 82, Co-writer of The Honeycombs’ Have I The Right? and all of Dave Dee, DBM&T’s hits, including my favourite, Last Night In Soho, which recently gave it’s name to Edgar Wright’s latest film. Actually, he will have also picked up some royalties after Dave Dee’s Hold Tight! featured in a Tarantino film.

    When you think of the broad range of Dave Dee etc’s hit singles, I was surprised that they all came from the same songwriters. Conventional pop songs like Hold Tight!, You Make It Move, Hideaway and Touch Me, Touch Me, cinematic epics like Last Night In Soho, The Legend Of Xanadu and Don Juan, and then odd tracks like Bend It, Zabadak (which is fab!) and Snake In The Grass. And after all that, Blaikely went on to write the theme tune for Miss Marple and a few West End musicals.

    • I don’t know how I missed this the other day – I saw the Barbara Thompson post below.
      Nazareth were a big band for me in my teens (along with SAHB) – by coincidence, I was listening to Razamanaz this week, one of the very first LPs I bought with my own money…

      RIP

  131. Just read an obituary in the paper of Ralph Hubert “Sonny” Barger, Jr. who died last month, American outlaw biker, founding member of the Oakland, California chapter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club in 1957.

  133. Alan Grant, writer of Batman, Last American, Mazeworld, Judges Dredd and Anderson as well as Strontium Dog among many others has died aged 73.

    Drokkin’ heck 🙁

    • Had a full run of 200ADs from the very first issue up until about 2002. Eventually threw all bar the first 50 out and eventually gave those away to a friend’s son.

      Absolutely amazing and comic in its prime and whose influence is still felt today in graphic novel series like The Boys

  134. Bob Rafelson, gone at 89 – without him Nesmith, Tork et al might have found some kind of visibility on the musical horizon, but it wouldn’t have been half as good without Rafelson and his idea for a TV show.

  136. Paul Sorvino

    Had small but significant roles in two of my favourite movies: Goodfellas and Romeo + Juliet. There’s a line about his character in Goodfellas that has always stayed in my mind: “Paulie might have moved slow, but it was only because Paulie didn’t have to move for anybody.”
    I’m a bit like Paulie in that respect.

  137. In the 90s there was a terrific Welsh series (shot in English) called A Mind to Kill in which Philip (“Don\’t tell him, Pike!”) Madoc played a police detective who was sucked into all sorts of unpleasant cases.

    In one of the very best eps, David W played the drunk driver who killed PM’s wife and PM befriended in order to pull his life apart after he got released from prison.

    If you can find it anywhere (maybe Channel5 catch up) the whole series is well worth watching

  139. David Trimble has died. As with de Klerk and Gorbachev, it is hard to disentangle the extent to which he led hugely significant change or was caught up in an irresistible historic process that he simply recognised he had to go along with. But given the history of Unionist intransigence, and the fact that the slightest concession was always going to see him branded a traitor, he deserves enormous credit for his part in the peace process. He was that rare thing, a Unionist prepared to compromise.

  142. James Lovelock, proposer of the Gaia hypothesis, has passed on, though no one can say that he didn’t get a fair shake of the stick as he was 103.

    I’m sure his full thinking was much more nuanced than this, but as I understand it Gaia proposes that the Earth is a single, self balancing organism. When people say, ‘They going to destroy the world!’ what they actually mean is they’re going to destroy humankind; the Earth will adjust and do just fine without us. It’s a huge idea simply grasped (at least in this highly reductive version) and one which I still find appealing and sensible.

  143. Archie Roach, indigenous Aussie singer songwriter, of lung cancer aged just 66.

    Only got one record of his, 1990’s Charcoal Lane, his first of nine and the source of this incredibly affecting song:

    Peehaps JW or one of our other Aussie posters can tell us more about the man and his music.

  144. Yes a significant cultural figure. Wonderful gentle voice and of course a powerful story to tell. That song is truly anthemic. For many years a duo with his wife Ruby Hunter whose death preceded his by some years.
    Remarkable timing as today at a major first nations festival the PM announced proceeding with a referendum to enshrine in our constitution an indigenous voice to Parliament
    You know , like so many other countries did years ago.

  145. Another Star Trek icon, and hence an huge figure of the childhood viewing of many, has left us as Nichelle ‘Lieutenant Uhura’ Nichols has died at the age of 89.

      • I was sad to hear of the death of Nichelle Nicholls. I was one of millions of small boys that adored her (that sounds a bit suss but you know what I mean).

        I think you’re right, the original cast is now represented by just George Takei (Sulu) and William Shatner.

        In one of Shatner’s audio books – he has a long and coruscating rant about George Takei. He almost spits his out name in disgust. A part of me thinks this is a running joke between them and they are actually good pals. Mind you, this is the book that has an entire chapter written in Esperanto, without explanation, so who knows what is going on.

  147. Judith Durham singer in the Aussie folk group has died. She had suffered a stroke and had been in a car accident. She was 79. Led by her wonderfully pure voice, The Seekers had huge hits internationally including The Carnival Is Over, I’ll Never Find Another You and of course Georgy Girl. Jazz singing was her first love but later in life the devout Christian released various records of hymns and carols. She put out an impressive acapella album. I played her version of Amazing Grace from that album at my Mother’s funeral.

    • She has sadly been dealing with breast cancer with grace and dignity for thirty years.

      This was my first introduction to her lovely voice and indeed all-round loveliness.

    • Also weirdly author of a younger generation’s favourite Pogue song. Love you til the end off the oft-forgotten Pogue Mahone is now their third most played song on Spotify. 30 mil+ due to appearing on soundtracks and in fan fiction. Hope it did him well.

  155. You may remember Darius Danesh from his smash hit single Colourblind, but you’re more likely to remember him from his ‘How much love is there in this room?’ appearances on Pop Idol. Those appearances briefly made him one of the most famous people in the country and were all of 20 years ago. Now he has died and the poor guy was still only 41.

    https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/aug/16/darius-campbell-danesh-former-pop-idol-contestant-dies?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1660664644

  158. Jerry Allison, aged 82, of the Crickets. Great friend and collaborator with Buddy and contributed so much to some of the greatest and most influential records of all time.

  161. Tim Page. The Vietnam war photographer who was famously
    described as “Too crazy” by hunter S Thompson

    Amazingly made it to 79 despite multiple NDEs in ‘Nam

    Extraordinary life celebrated in the old Arena doc below

    • Oh, I’d missed that news.
      He produced some extraordinary images & was supposedly the inspiration for Dennis Hopper’s deranged photographer in ‘Apocalypse Now’.

  162. Joey DeFrancesco, jazz organist, trumpeter are more recently tenor sax player has died aged only 51. I bought his 2018 collaboration CD with Van Morrison “You’re Driving Me Crazy” and enjoyed it a lot.

  163. Mikhael Gorbachev. How much he consciously led the Soviet Union towards independence of its constituent parts and how much he was caught up in irresistible political change is hard to assess. But its hard to imagine any of his predecessors allowing things to unfurl as they did without trying to crush it with violence and oppression, so I think he deserves a lot of credit. I see the likes of Owen Jones and the ‘right side of history’ mob are dissing him and blaming him for everything that has happened in Russia since up to and including the invasion of Ukraine. Because obviously Stalinism was much better.

    • I went to live and work in the Soviet Union just before the collapse in 1991 (it wasn’t me, I swear – it was broke when I got there) and stayed for most of Yeltsin’s time in office. We in the west rightly see Gorbachev as a reformer and history maker. I think he was a pragmatic and decent man in a flawed system but it’s true that in Russia (or Moscow at least) there were many who disliked him because he made the SU look weak, others disliked him because they saw the pace of reform as being too slow and most others were ambivalent. Personally I owe him a debt of gratitude as Perestroika and Glasnost reforms gave me the opportunity to live and work in Moscow where I met my wife (also Irish) and we had three kids, all now great young women, so without Gorby’s reforms my family would not be here. It’s such a shame that the potential he unshackled (albeit, perhaps, unintentionally) has been destroyed in recent years and most especially in the last six months. Thirty years ago I worked with some fantastic young men and women in Russia. In more recent years we have hosted some young Russian people (amongst other nationalities) who studied English here in Ireland. It breaks my heart to think that those kids or the children of the people I worked with in the nineties might be dying or killing or committing atrocities or scared out of their minds now in Ukraine. I imagine it would be quite a different world if the August ’91 coup attempt had not happened and Mikhail Sergeyevich had been given the opportunity to introduce reform at a more controlled pace but who knows?

    • Blimey! I know Stephen King is considered something of a Dick Dastardly figure on this site, but it seems a trifle harsh to use the language of the war (Collaborator!!) to describe those who associate with this villain..

  167. Eddie Butler has died suddenly at the young age of 65. Former Welsh rugby captain who turned into an excellent commentator, his double act with Brian Moore was not to be missed

    • Met Paul a few times at singing weekends. All of what you say, witty, inspirational, learned and a great contributor to the folk world, which will be reeling from this sad, sad news.

    • I’m really saddened by this. I booked the 2021 season for my local Folk Club and thanks to Covid the first one that actually took place was Belshazzars Feast on 17th Sep 2021, a year ago today. I took both Pauls down to the pub for a pre-gig meal and they were excellent company. The gig was terrific. Last weds I got a mailout from their agent highlighting all the things Paul Sartin had lined up for the rest of the year. By teatime the following day the same agent posted a statement from his family that he had died 🙁

    • There was a discussion on Newstalk radio here only this morning about Crystal Gayle and her version of Talking In Your Sleep. The presenter mentioned that Crystal was the younger sister of Loretta Lynn and remarked how Loretta was still around and still working…

  178. UK Subs’ Stevie Ze Suicide

    I’d not heard of him, tbh, but was surprised to read about a “legendary punk rocker” called Suicide committing suicide. These things I know from his obituary:
    He “played in several artists during the 1970s including David Bowie.” He was also a Bay City Roller. He had pink hair (I don’t know for how long). His manager thought he was a very lively character, full of life. He would often ask his wife if she was alright.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11316453/Punk-pioneers-UK-Subs-drummer-Stevie-Ze-Suicide-takes-life-aged-68.html

  179. Robbie Coltrane, probably best known as Hagrid in the Harry Potter films, but more celebrated to most of us here for Tutti Frutti, Blackadder, Cracker and so on, has passed away at 72.

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