Deaths (Obituaries)

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    Jerry Miller, Moby Grape Guitarist, Dies at 81

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    He drew praise for his blues-inflected fretwork as his critically acclaimed band rode high, if briefly, during San Francisco’s Summer of Love.Jerry Miller, an acclaimed guitarist who emerged from the Pacific Northwest club circuit to make his mark on San Francisco’s psychedelic rock scene in the 1960s as a founding member of the lauded, if star-crossed, band Moby Grape, died on Sunday at his home in Tacoma, Wash. He was 81.His grandson Cody Miller said that he died in his sleep but that the cause was not yet known.Mr. Miller, whose fans came to include Eric Clapton and Robert Plant, played lead in the potent three-guitar attack of Moby Grape, a San Francisco quintet that hit its zenith in 1967, the year of the so-called Summer of Love.During its brief but shimmering heyday, Moby Grape was considered one of the top bands of the flower-power era. But while its psychedelic contemporaries in the city’s flourishing rock scene tended toward through-the-looking-glass lyrics and cosmic free jams, the band set itself apart by cranking out an earthy mix of blues, country, folk and chugging rock ’n’ roll — an eclectic approach that fit Mr. Miller’s musical philosophy, which he described in a 2013 interview with the website Blues.Gr as “a jolly good mix-up.”Moby Grape’s debut album, released in 1967, packed 13 songs into a tight 31 minutes. Rolling Stone once ranked it No.124 on its list of the 500 greatest rock albums, calling it “genuine hippie power pop.”ColumbiaMoby Grape’s debut album, called simply “Moby Grape” and released in 1967, contained 13 songs packed into 31 minutes. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it No. 124 on its original list of rock’s 500 greatest albums, describing it as “genuine hippie power pop.”Mr. Miller had a writing credit on six of those tracks, including “Hey Grandma” and “8:05,” which came to be hailed as classics of the era. The album was “one of the finest (perhaps the finest) to come out of the San Francisco psychedelic scene,” Mark Deming wrote on the site Allmusic.com.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Darryl ‘Joe Cool’ Daniel, Illustrator of Snoop Dogg’s First Album Cover, Dies at 56

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      The 1993 album “Doggystyle” went on to sell millions of copies around the world and solidified the career of Mr. Daniel, known as Joe Cool, as a hip-hop illustrator.Darryl Daniel, a hip-hop illustrator who designed the cover for his cousin Snoop Dogg’s genre-defining 1993 album “Doggystyle” and went on to lend his distinctive artistic flair to brands like Adidas and Supreme, has died. He was 56.His sister Diondra Daniel confirmed his death, and Snoop Dogg acknowledged it on Monday on social media, but neither provided additional information.Mr. Daniel, known in the hip-hop world as Joe Cool, became synonymous with the bright colors, block letters and bawdy canines featured on the cover of “Doggystyle,” which sold millions of copies around the world.His style from then on would always be linked to the album’s hits, including “Gin and Juice” and “Lodi Dodi,” which were heard on the streets and at house parties throughout Long Beach, Calif., greater Los Angeles and ultimately the country in the early 1990s, when “Doggystyle” helped usher in an era of G-funk music and became foundational for West Coast hip-hop.The artwork depicts two dogs in suggestive postures while several others peer over a brick wall above a dumbstruck dogcatcher. The risqué content drew negative reactions in the early ’90s, with some critics saying the depictions were demeaning to women, but Snoop Dogg fervently promoted Mr. Daniel’s work.On an episode of “The Arsenio Hall Show” in 1994, Mr. Hall asked Snoop Dogg if he had anything to say about the artwork.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Toumani Diabaté, Malian Master of the Kora, Is Dead at 58

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      He believed that music could transcend national borders set by colonialism and restore ancient ties, even as it embraced the changes of a globalizing society.Toumani Diabaté, a virtuoso of the kora, a 21-stringed West African instrument, which he often put into dialogue with other musical traditions from around the globe, died on Friday in Bamako, Mali. He was 58.His death, in a hospital, was caused by kidney failure, said his manager, Saul Presa.Born in Mali to a line of griots, or traditional West African musician-historians, that he traced back more than 70 generations, Mr. Diabaté was devoted to celebrating the heritage of Mandé-speaking peoples throughout West Africa, and to sharing that history with the world.“If you think of West Africa as a body, then the griot is the blood,” he told The New York Times in 2006. “We are the guardians of West Africa’s society. We are communicators.”He believed that music could transcend national borders set by colonialism and restore ancient ties, even as it embraced the changes of a globalizing society. That mission inspired him to create his flagship ensemble, the Symmetric Orchestra.“I started building this band to rebuild Manden empire in a cultural way,” he said in a 2011 interview with Uncut magazine, referring to the Mali Empire that once covered the Upper Niger River basin from present-day Mali to Senegal. “The musicians are all from West African, Manden countries. I took the best from Senegal, Ghana, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Mauretania, and I put them all together.”Mr. Diabaté recorded two duet albums with the Malian guitarist Ali Farka Touré. They both won the Grammy Award for best traditional world music album.World CircuitWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      John Mayall, Pioneer of British Blues, Is Dead at 90

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      Mr. Mayall was best known for recruiting and polishing the talents of one gifted young lead guitarist after another, starting with Eric Clapton.John Mayall, the pioneering British bandleader whose mid-1960s blues ensembles served as incubators for some of the biggest stars of rock’s golden era, died on Monday. He was 90. The death was confirmed in a statement on Mr. Mayall’s official Facebook page. The statement did not give a cause or specify where he died, saying only that he died “in his California home.”Though he played piano, organ, guitar and harmonica and sang lead vocals in his own bands with a high, reedy tenor, Mr. Mayall earned his reputation as “the godfather of British blues” not for his own playing or singing but for recruiting and polishing the talents of one gifted young lead guitarist after another.“Blues Breakers,” colloquially known as The “Beano” album, featuring Eric Clapton was the debut studio album by the English blues rock band John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, was released in 1966.DeccaIn his most fertile period, between 1965 and 1969, those budding stars included Eric Clapton, who left to form the band Cream and eventually became a hugely successful solo artist; Peter Green, who left to found Fleetwood Mac; and Mick Taylor, who was snatched from the Mayall band by the Rolling Stones.A more complete list of the alumni of Mr. Mayall’s band of that era, known as the Bluesbreakers, reads like a Who’s Who of British pop royalty. The drummer Mick Fleetwood and the bassist John McVie were also founding members of Fleetwood Mac. The bassist Jack Bruce joined Mr. Clapton in Cream. The bassist Andy Fraser was an original member of Free. Aynsley Dunbar would go on to play drums for Frank Zappa, Journey and Jefferson Starship.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Duke Fakir, Last Surviving Member of the Four Tops, Dies at 88

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      He sang tenor on hits like “Standing in the Shadow of Love,” “Reach Out, I’ll Be There” and “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch).”Abdul Fakir, who was known as Duke, the last remaining original member of the Four Tops, one of Motown’s best-selling and most beloved groups, died on Monday at his home in Detroit. He was 88.His family said in a statement that the cause was heart failure.Mr. Fakir sang first tenor with the Four Tops, who were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. The group’s hits not only helped define the “Motown Sound” but also the entire 1960s era of pop.Their classics included the exuberant “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)” and the urgent “Reach Out, I’ll Be There,” both of which hit No. 1, along with the barreling Top 10 staples “It’s The Same Old Song,” “Standing In the Shadows of Love” and “Bernadette.”The Four Tops in an undated publicity photo. From left, Mr. Fakir, Levi Stubbs, Obie Benson and Lawrence Payton. Mr. Fakir had first met Mr. Stubbs at a neighborhood football game.Bettman Archive, via Getty ImagesFor a two-year period, the Four Tops worked with Motown’s celebrated songwriting and production team Holland-Dozier-Holland (the brothers Brian and Eddie Holland and Lamont Dozier). After leaving the label in 1972, the quartet earned more Top 10 records with “Keeper of the Castle” and “Ain’t No Woman (Like the One I Got”).On all the group’s songs, Mr. Fakir’s high, smooth voice added grace to harmonies that supported the baritone lead vocals of Levi Stubbs.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Bernice Johnson Reagon, a Musical Voice for Civil Rights, Is Dead at 81

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      A singer, composer, curator and founder of the vocal group Sweet Honey in the Rock, she provided a gospel soundtrack for the civil rights movement.Bernice Johnson Reagon, whose stirring gospel voice helped provide the soundtrack of the civil rights movement, then went on to become a cultural historian, a curator at the Smithsonian Institution and the founder of the women’s a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock, died on Tuesday in Washington. She was 81.Her death, in a hospital, was confirmed by her daughter, Toshi Reagon, who did not give a cause.Bernice Reagon, the daughter of a Baptist preacher in Albany, Ga., grew up in a church without a piano, and the first music she absorbed, rooted in spirituals and hymns, was performed by human voices to the accompaniment of clapping and foot stomping.She was an original member in 1962 of the Freedom Singers, a vocal quartet that provided anthems of defiance for civil rights protesters preparing to confront the police or as they were hauled away to jail. The Freedom Singers were associated with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which sent them across the South as well as to the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island in 1963.Ms. Reagon once wrote, “I sang and heard the freedom songs and saw them pull together sections of the Black community at times when other means of communication were ineffective.”She went on to earn a doctorate in American history from Howard University in 1975 and to direct the Black American Culture Program at the Smithsonian. There, she amassed a collection of blues, gospel and spiritual music and presented that heritage to the public.During one gospel music presentation, in the 1980s, Ms. Reagon encouraged the audience to hum and sing along with the performers. “And if you can’t do that, grunt or sigh a little,” she instructed.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Happy Traum, Mainstay of the Folk Music World, Dies at 86

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      A noted guitarist and banjo player, he emerged from the same Greenwich Village folk-revival scene as his friend and sometime collaborator Bob Dylan.Happy Traum, a celebrated folk singer, guitarist and banjo player who was a mainstay of the Greenwich Village coffeehouse scene of the early 1960s, recorded with Bob Dylan and had an influential career as a music instructor, died on Wednesday in Manhattan. He was 86.His wife, Jane Traum, said he died of pancreatic cancer in a physical rehabilitation facility after undergoing surgery for the disease. He lived in Woodstock, N.Y.Known for his easy vocal approach and his prowess as a finger-style guitarist and five-string banjo player, the Bronx-bred Mr. Traum was an enduring presence in the folk world for more than six decades.“Revered by most in the musical know, he is easily one of the most significant acoustic-roots musicians and guitar pickers of his — and many other — generations,” Blues magazine observed in the introduction to a 2016 interview with Mr. Traum.Will Hermes of Rolling Stone described him as a “folk revivalist straight out of ‘Inside Llewyn Davis,’” a reference to the Coen brothers’ 2013 folk-world odyssey, in a four-star review of Mr. Traum’s album “Just for the Love of It.” It was the seventh of eight albums he released as a leader, starting with “Relax Your Mind” in 1975.In the late 1960s, Mr. Traum performed in a highly regarded duo with his younger brother, Artie Traum. The brothers performed at the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island in 1969, toured the world and released five albums, starting with “Happy and Artie Traum” in 1970. Artie Traum died of liver cancer in 2008.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Cheng Pei Pei, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Actor, Dies

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      A trailblazer for women in Asian martial arts cinema, Ms. Cheng rose to fame in the 1960s in Hong Kong.Cheng Pei Pei, a trailblazer for women in Asian martial arts cinema and a star of the 2000 blockbuster “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” died on July 17 in the San Francisco Bay Area. She was 78.Her representatives at Echelon Talent Management confirmed her death in a statement. She was diagnosed in 2019 with a neurodegenerative disease similar to Parkinson’s, they said.Ms. Cheng was born on Jan. 6, 1946, in Shanghai. Trained in ballet and traditional Chinese dance, she began her acting career in Hong Kong in 1964 and became one of the stars of the wuxia genre of martial arts films. Her breakout role was in the mid-’60s kung fu classic “Come Drink With Me.”“Our mom Cheng Pei Pei wanted to be remembered for who she was: the legendary ‘Queen of Martial Arts,’” her family said in a statement. “She loved being an actress and knew, even with her hard work, how fortunate she was to have the career she had.”Ms. Cheng moved to the United States in the 1970s, where her four children were born.She played the villain Jade Fox in “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” featuring in some of the film’s most memorable fight scenes.Ms. Cheng chose to keep her medical condition private, her management said.She donated her brain to the Brain Support Network, a nonprofit organization that supports people diagnosed with neurodegenerative disorders. More

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      Bob Newhart, Soft-Spoken Everyman Who Became a Comedy Star, Dies at 94

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      He was a show-business neophyte when he stammered his way to fame in 1960. He went on to star in two of TV’s most memorable sitcoms.Bob Newhart, who burst onto the comedy scene in 1960 working a stammering Everyman character not unlike himself, then rode essentially that same character through a long, busy career that included two of television’s most memorable sitcoms, died on Thursday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 94.His publicist, Jerry Digney, confirmed the death.Mr. Newhart wasn’t merely unknown a few months before his emergence as a full-fledged star; he was barely in the business, though he had aspirations. In 1959, some comic tapes he had made to amuse himself while working as an accountant in Chicago caught the ear of an executive at Warner Bros. Records, which in 1960 released the comedy album “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart.”The record shot to No. 1 on the charts, and at the 1961 Grammy Awards it improbably captured the top prize, album of the year. Among the nominees Mr. Newhart bested: Nat King Cole, Harry Belafonte and Frank Sinatra.He won two other Grammys that year as well, for best new artist and best spoken-word comedy performance, an honor that was given not to his first album but to his second, a hastily made follow-up titled “The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back!” For a while, his first two albums occupied the top two spots on the Billboard album chart.“Playboy magazine hailed me ‘the best new comedian of the decade,’” Mr. Newhart wrote in his autobiography, “I Shouldn’t Even Be Doing This: And Other Things That Strike Me as Funny” (2006), describing this period. “Of course, there were still nine more years left in the decade.”A Quick TransitionUnlike many entertainers who achieve fame almost overnight, Mr. Newhart was able to handle the unexpected success of the “Button-Down Mind” albums. He transitioned quickly and easily into television, landing a short-lived variety show, numerous guest appearances on the shows of Dean Martin and Ed Sullivan, regular work guest-hosting for Johnny Carson on “The Tonight Show” and, ultimately, “The Bob Newhart Show,” a celebrated sitcom in which he played a somewhat befuddled psychologist.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More