We note with sadness the following contributors to rock and pop music of the 50s through the 80s – the BEST music ever made! – who passed on last month:
February 01
● Jimmy Moschello / (Vincent James Moschello) → Baritone vocalist and co-founder, in 1958 with lead singer Vito Picone, of “South Beach” Staten Island (NY) doo-wop group The Elegants; enjoyed a brief stint at stardom with the one hit wonder, nursery rhyme inspired “Little Star” (#1, R&B #1, 1958) and appearances on American Bandstand; later performed with the group on oldies tours such as the “Biggest Show of Stars” before retiring to his hometown in the late 00s and only occasionally appearing in local oldies revival shows; died from unspecified causes on 2/1/2026, age 87.
● Steve Washington → The “Master of the Groove,” influential funk trumpet player, key figure in 80s funk music, and co-founder, producer and chief songwriter for funk groups Slave and Aurra; released five Gold albums with Slave, four groundbreaking albums with spin-off group Aurra, and a string of the groups’ electro-funk hits including “Make Up Your Mind” (#71, R&B #6, 1981); later appeared on dozens of tracks with longtime collaborator and wife, vocalist Starleana Young as session musicians for the Salsoul and Next Plateau labels; died from complications of a liver tumor on 2/1/2026, age 67.
February 02
● Chuck Negron / (Charles Negron II) → Co-founder and co-lead vocalist in hugely-successful pop-rock Three Dog Night, scoring 21 consecutive Top 40 hits with the group between 1969 and 1975; sang tenor vocals on enduring songs “One” (#5, 1969), “Easy to Be Hard” (#4, 1969) and the anthemic “Joy to the World” (#1, 1971); battled heroin addiction in the 80s but recovered to publish a candid autobiography Three Dog Nightmare in 1999 and tour extensively as a solo artist and as part of the Happy Together Tour throughout the 00s and 10s; released several solo albums including Am I Still In Your Heart (1995) and The Long Road Back (2013); suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPB) in his later years and died from heart failure on 2/2/2026, age 83.
February 03
● Lamonte McLemore / (Herman Lamonte McLemore) → Smooth-voiced baritone and co-founder with childhood friends Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. of the Grammy-winning pop-soul group The 5th Dimension and the worldwide hit “Medley: Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In (The Flesh Failures)” (#1, 1969); sang or co-sang three other #1 hits among a total of twenty Top 40 hits by the group; was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, both in 1991; worked as a professional photographer for Playboy and People magazines in the 00s and 10s and published a candid memoir From Hobo Flats to The 5th Dimension in 2014; suffered a stroke and died at home on 2/3/2026, age 90.
February 05
● Fred Smith / (Fredrick Edward Lefkowitz) → Original bassist for New Wave pop-rock Blondie; left in 1975 to replace Richard Hell in punk-rock Television; the group became the first punk band to headline at New York’s CBGB club during its transition from county to avant garde rock and their debut LP Marquee Moon (1977) is considered a defining album in the development of punk and alternative rock; stayed with the group until break-up in 1978 and returned for a one-album reunion in 1992 and occasional gigs since, in between playing on solo albums by bandmates Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd, and session work for Willie Nile, The Roches and others; started a boutique vineyard with his wife in New York’s Hudson Valley in the 2007; died from an unspecified form of cancer on 2/5/2026, age 77.
February 08
● Garland Green / (Garfield Green Jr.) → Chicago smooth soul singer and songwriter with the million-selling hit “Jealous Kind of Fella” (#20, R&B #5, 1969) and eight other, minor charts from 1970 to 1983; continued to record sporadically over the next three decades with limited success but became a fixture on the UK Northern Soul circuits; issued a final album, I Should’ve Been The One in 2012; died from complications of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) on 2/8/2026, age 83.
February 10
● Andrew Ranken → Drummer and occasional vocalist in London-based Celtic punk group The Pogues for 35 years; provided the driving, military-style percussion and occasional vocals on all of the band’s influential albums, including Rum Sodomy & the Lash (1985) and If I Should Fall from Grace with God (1988); and the enduring holiday classic “Fairytale of New York” (UK #2, 1987); in between break-up in 1996 and reunion in 2001 fronted The Men They Couldn’t Hang and led his own group, The Kippers; following the final dissolution of the band in 2014, continued to collaborate with former bandmates and participate in various folk-rock projects; died from complications of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) on 3/13/2026, age 72.
February 11
● Jerry Kennedy / (Jerry Glenn Kennedy) → Guitarist and co-founder, in 1953 with his brother Gene, of the rockabilly duo The Kennedy Brothers; moved to Nashville in the late 50s and joined the celebrated A-Team of session musicians; played on Roy Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman” (Worldwide #1, 1964) and Bob Dylan’s 1966 Blonde on Blonde album; switched to production in the late-60s and enjoyed a long, Grammy-winning career as a producer and record label executive with Mercury and Smash records, overseeing the careers of Roger Miller, Reba McEntire, Tom T. Hall, and The Statler Brothers among many others, and becoming an architect of the celebrated Nashville Sound of contemporary country music; inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame in 2019; died in hospice care from heart failure on 2/11/2026, age 85.
February 13
● Wayne Proctor / (Alvis Proctor) → Lead guitarist and primary songwriter for quintessential 1960s garage rock We the People, the group never achieved national recognition but charted several singles regionally, including “Mirror of My Mind” (1966), “You Burn Me Up and Down” (1966), and “In the Past” (1966, later covered by psych-rock The Chocolate Watchband); after the group’s dissolution in 1970, remained active in the Southeast regional music scene and contributed to various studio projects; his work was later memorialized on numerous Nuggets-style compilations including the comprehensive Mirror of Our Minds (1998); worked as a civic planner in South Carolina in later decades and died from undisclosed causes on 2/13/2026, age 78.
February 16
● Billy Steinberg / (William Endfield Steinberg) → Prolific songwriter and contributor to the pop sound of the 80s and 90s through iconic chart-toppers, including Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” (Worldwide #1, 1984), Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors” (#1, CAN #1, 1986) and The Bangles’ “Eternal Flame” (Worldwide #1, 1989), among many others, most often with songwriting partner Tom Kelly; the pair also recorded and released a lone album, Taking A Cold Look (1983), as studio AOR band i-Ten and were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2011; after Kelly retired in the late 90s continued to write songs in collaboration with others for two decades; died at home from cancer on 2/16/2026, age 75.
February 27
● Neil Sedaka → Pianist, singer, and prolific songwriter, first in the original lineup of late-50s and 60s doo wop group The Tokens, and from 1958 as a solo performer with 25 bubblegum- and sunshine-pop charting singles, ten of them Top 10s, co-written with his writing partner, lyricist Howard Greenfield, in New York’s Brill Building, where the two authored over 500 songs, including his own chart-toppers “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” (#1, 1962) and “Calendar Girl” (#4, 1961) as well as Connie Francis’s “Stupid Cupid” (#14, 1958); after Beatlemania changed the music landscape and forced a decade in the commercial wilderness, staged a major comeback in the mid-70s with “Laughter in the Rain” (#1, 1974) and “Bad Blood” (#1, 1975); also co-wrote pop-rock Captain & Tennille‘s global smash “Love Will Keep Us Together” (#1, CAN #1, 1975) and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1983; continued to record and perform as a solo artist well into his 80s; died suddenly from undisclosed causes on 3/13/2026, age 87.
● Travis Wammack / (Travis Lavoid Wammack Sr.) → Rock ‘n’ roll guitarist, songwriter, and teenage prodigy performing as “Little Travis” in the late 50s before achieving brief fame for his lightning-fast guitar work on the instrumental “Scratchy” (#80, 1964); parlayed his guitar skills into a long and revered career as a session musician and producer starting in the 60s, contributing his signature fuzz-tone and slide sounds to records by Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, and Clarence Carter, among many others, on hundreds of tracks and albums recorded in Memphis and Muscle Shoals, Alabama over several decades; simultaneously issued sixteen solo albums and four minor hit singles and served as music director for Little Richard from 1984 to 1995; inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 1999; died from undisclosed causes on 2/27/2026, age 79.
February 28
● John P. Hammond / (John Paul Hammond ) → Award-winning but commercially underappreciated blues revivalist singer and guitarist; son of legendary record producer John H. Hammond Jr.; from 1963 to 2024 issued nearly 40 albums of mostly acoustic blues, folk and Americana music, including interpretations of classic blues by Robert Johnson and other blues legends, and several featuring high-profile collaborators like Eric Clapton, Mike Bloomfield and Duane Allman; recorded and toured for over six decades as a virtuoso guitarist and harmonica player; was celebrated as a preservationist of the genre and was a mainstay on the blues festival circuit until just before his death in a hospital from cardiac arrest on 2/28/2026, age 83.
