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2013 Entertainment Industry Obituaries

LARadioRewind said:
"Hey, babe, Happy 1959! Welcome to my bachelor pad. Come on in and sit on the couch and I'll mix us a couple of martinis and put some of these cool "Space Age" lounge music albums on the hi-fi. You know they were arranged and conducted by Bob Thompson."

Thompson also arranged radio and tv commercials, played piano for Mae West, and arranged albums for Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney. Thompson died of Alzheimer's disease May 21 at age 88.
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-adv-bob-thompson-20130610,0,2624956.story
Click to expand...

It's an honor to read mention of such passings, even of the more obscure behind-the-scenes characters. The giant marquee stars owe their successes in large part to these players. Keep up the good work, LAR.
 
And, speaking of "obscure behind-the-scenes characters":

Bob Warren died May 21 at age 93. He worked at WDEL in Wilmington, WPEN in Philadelphia, and NBC Radio in New York. During World War II, he enlisted in the Army and broadcast programs for Armed Forces Radio. After the war, he returned to New York and worked at ABC Radio, then became a television announcer for the programs of Pinky Lee, Kate Smith, Red Skelton, Lawrence Welk, and Ralph Edwards (This Is Your Life). Warren also voiced hundreds of commercials and appeared in the 1948 David Niven movie A Matter Of Life & Death (released in the United States as Stairway To Heaven). In the 1970s Warren was a news anchor at KGBS in Los Angeles.

Warren was the Lawrence Welk Show announcer for 20 years. At the end of each telecast, Welk would say "A-thank-a-you, a-Bob-a." To this day I still a-don't-a know-a why-a Welk-a talked-a like-a that!
 
LARadioRewind said:
And, speaking of "obscure behind-the-scenes characters":

Bob Warren died May 21 at age 93. He worked at WDEL in Wilmington, WPEN in Philadelphia, and NBC Radio in New York. During World War II, he enlisted in the Army and broadcast programs for Armed Forces Radio. After the war, he returned to New York and worked at ABC Radio, then became a television announcer for the programs of Pinky Lee, Kate Smith, Red Skelton, Lawrence Welk, and Ralph Edwards (This Is Your Life). Warren also voiced hundreds of commercials and appeared in the 1948 David Niven movie A Matter Of Life & Death (released in the United States as Stairway To Heaven). In the 1970s Warren was a news anchor at KGBS in Los Angeles.

Warren was the Lawrence Welk Show announcer for 20 years. At the end of each telecast, Welk would say "A-thank-a-you, a-Bob-a." To this day I still a-don't-a know-a why-a Welk-a talked-a like-a that!
Click to expand...

Coincidentally, Warren's name earned a workout recently on the Lawrence Welk thread.
 
Who was the first to sing I Left My Heart In San Francisco? You say Tony Bennett? Yeah, I would have said that too. Almost everyone would say that. The song was written in 1952 for Claramae Turner. She sang it in concerts but never recorded it. Turner appeared in the 1956 film Carousel and was a contralto with the San Francisco Opera and the New York Metropolitan Opera. She died May 18 at age 92.

http://www.operanews.com/Opera_News_Magazine/2013/5/News/Claramae_Turner.html
 
We lost Dave Brubeck in December 2012 and already this year we've lost Bert Wilson, Mulgrew Miller, Johnny Smith and Sam Most. Bassist Coleridge Goode is 98, flutist/saxophonist Yusef Lateef is 92, and drummer Chico Hamilton is 91. One of them could be next...but I hope not.
 
So many singers and musicians have died at age 27, an informal "27 Club" was started to keep track of them. There are now 44 people on the list. Most of the deaths were due to drug overdoses, auto accidents or suicide. Yikes!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/27_Club
 
Thanks LAR. I'd forgotten about that "27 Club". Many rock jocks, myself included, gave that list quite a workout back in the day. The 27 Club catchphrase caught on as a promotional gimmick, much like today's "Get The Led Out" is used to cue an upcoming Led Zepellin number.
 
He sang! He played guitar! He yodeled! He worked on radio in Florida! He appeared on the Louisiana Hayride! He had hits in the US and the UK! (Such hyperbole---but it was probably deserved. He often claimed that he had sold more records than the Beatles.) Slim Whitman, whose hits included Indian Love Call, Cattle Call, Rose Marie, North Wind and Secret Love, died June 19 at age 89.

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/06/19/country-legend-slim-whitman-dies-at-age-0/
 
LARadioRewind said:
He sang! He played guitar! He yodeled! He worked on radio in Florida! He appeared on the Louisiana Hayride! He had hits in the US and the UK! (Such hyperbole---but it was probably deserved. He often claimed that he had sold more records than the Beatles.) Slim Whitman, whose hits included Indian Love Call, Cattle Call, Rose Marie, North Wind and Secret Love, died June 19 at age 89.
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/06/19/country-legend-slim-whitman-dies-at-age-0/
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Whitman seemed to have garnered his most loyal following in the U.K, yet the Nashville establishment has always claimed Whitman as one of their own.
 
Yes, and that is surprising when you consider how many of Whitman's singles were remakes of pop songs: Cattle Call, Cool Water, Secret Love, Heaven Says Hello, Paloma Blanca, The Twelfth Of Never, Shutters & Boards, Only You, My Happiness, It's No Sin, It's All In The Game, Can't Help Falling In Love and several others.

I can't put him down for that, though. Sonny James was more guilty than Slim Whitman was!
 
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