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:
November 03
● Quincy Jones / (Quincy Delight Jones Jr.) → Seven-decade music industry giant and highly-influential bandleader, producer, songwriter, film score composer and record label executive, worked with scores of top artists in multiple genres over the years, including teen-pop Lesley Gore (“It’s My Party,” #1, R&B #1, 1963), soul-pop Michael Jackson (“Beat It,” #1, R&B #1, 1983), the famine-relief charity single “We Are The World” (worldwide #1, 1985), and many others, won 28 Grammy Awards, four Golden Globes and numerous other honorary degrees, awards and accolades, composed the scores to over forty films (In Cold Blood, 1967) and nearly twenty TV programs (Roots, 1977), as a solo artist and frontman in collaborations with others released 22 singles, including “Stuff Like That” (#21, R&B #1, 1978), in later years focused on charity work and mentoring younger musicians, founded Qwest TV streaming black and world music in videos in 2017, died from pancreatic cancer on 11/3/2024, age 91.
November 04
● Tyka Nelson / (Tyka Evene Nelson) → Daughter of two jazz musicians and only full sibling of R&B/soul-pop superstar Prince, established a career outside his shadow and released four solo albums between 1988 and 2011, as well as a charting single, “Marc Anthony’s Tune” (R&B #33, 1988), inherited her brother’s estate along with her five half-siblings after Prince’s death in 2016, then sold her share, managed his Paisley Park museum, and posthumously released music from his unreleased catalog until falling into an undeclared illness in June 2024, shortly cancelled a planned concert, announced her retirement from music, and died in a Minnesota hospital on 11/4/2024, age 64.
November 09
● Ella Jenkins / (Ella Louise Jenkins) → The “First Lady of children’s music,” self-taught musician and songwriter with 39 albums and six Grammy Awards from a 60 year career in folk music for children, credited with establishing the genre of children’s music as an important part of popular, commercially viable music, her recordings on Folkways Records – with Multicultural Children’s Songs (1995) the most popular – featured nursery rhymes, African spirituals, Native American rhythms, bilingual lyrics, chants and call-and-response singing, most always with children’s voices in harmony or back-up, issued a final album in 2017 but continued to perform until the onset of the COVID pandemic in 2020, died from natural causes on 11/9/2024, age 100.
November 13
● Shel Talmy / (Sheldon Talmy) → Chicago-born, London-transplant record producer and music arranger with a deep resume in a short period in the mid-60s, including British Invasion guitar rock bands The Kinks (“You Really Got Me,” #7, UK #1, 1964) and The Who (“I Can’t Explain,” #93, UK #8, 1965 and their debut album My Generation, UK #5, 1965), plus cult group The Creation, Aussie rock ‘n’ roll The Easybeats (“Friday On My Mind,” #16, UK #6, 1967), unsuccessful early songs for future star David Bowie, folk-rock The Pentangle, folk-pop Chad & Jeremy, and other top UK artists of the era, returned to the US in 1979 and “retired” from producing in the 80s, except for an occasional project with lesser known US artists, died following a stroke on 11/13/2024, age 87.
November 14
● Peter Sinfield / (Peter John Sinfield) → Founding member, original roadie, sound engineer, and chief lyricist for prog rock King Crimson, his work helped defined progressive rock in its earliest incarnations on the group’s first four albums, including the debut single “The Court Of The Crimson King” (#80, 1970), moved on in the 70s and penned songs for prog rock luminaries Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and to a more pop oriented sound in the 90s, writing the lyrics and producing for Celine Dion and Brit pop-rock Bucks Fizz, dropped out of the industry after a 2005 quadruple bypass surgery, concentrated on classical poetry and Japanese haiku until dying from undisclosed causes on 11/14/2024, age 80.
● Dennis Bryon / (Dennis Ronald Bryon) → Welsh keyboardist and 17-year-old co-founder of early prog rock septet Amen Corner (“(If Paradise Is) Half As Nice,” UK #1, 1969), joined pop-rock The Bee Gees in 1974 and drummed with the band through their disco-era albums and eight US #1 hits, including “Staying Alive” (#1, UK #4, 1977) and “Tragedy” (#1, UK #1, 1979), moved to Nashville in 1980 and spent the ensuing decades writing music for others and doing session work, most notably Barbara Streisand, Dave Edmunds, Kenny Rogers and the Italian Bee Gees, died from undisclosed causes on 11/14/2024, age 75 (four days before the death of his Bee Gees predecessor drummer, Colin Petersen).
● Vic Flick / (Victor Harold Flick) → Highly regarded English studio guitarist who played on #1 hits by Petula Clark (“Downtown,” #1, UK #2, 1964), Peter & Gordon (“A World Without Love,” #1, UK #1, 1964), and Tom Jones (“It’s Not Unusual,” #10, UK #1, 1965), and scores of other charting singles, best known as the guitarist in “James Bond Theme” from the movie Dr. No (1962) and subsequent James Bond soundtracks through the late 80s, as well as composing and arranging soundtracks for other films, the guitar used in the original James Bond theme song is in the collection of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, died from complications of Alzheimer’s disease on 11/14/2024, age 87.
November 18
● Colin “Smiley” Petersen / (Frederick Colin Petersen) → Australian drummer, record producer and child actor in several late 50s films, grade school classmate of Barry Gibb and acquaintance of Maurice Gibb, moved to London in 1967 and joined pop-rock The Bee Gees (“I Started A Joke,” #6, 1968) as drummer and first non-Gibb family bandmember, fired in August 1969 over partnership dispute and lost his rights to royalties in a court case, formed a short-lived rock group and produced several albums for various artists in the 70s, returned to Australia in 1974 and largely disappeared from the music industry, except for occasional appearances in a Bee Gees tribute show, died after falling at home on 11/18/2024, age 78 (four days after the death of his Bee Gees successor drummer, Dennis Bryon).
November 20
● Mike Pinera / (Carlos Michael Pinera) → Guitarist and singer with pop-rock Blues Image, co-wrote their lone hit “Ride Captain Ride” (#4, 1970), left the group in 1970 for a brief stint with hard rock Iron Butterfly and two albums, formed three other rocks bands in the 70s with limited commercial success before issuing two solo albums and a charting single, “Goodnight My Love” (#70, 1980), joined Alice Cooper’s Special Forces band in the early 80s and formed the Classic Rock All Stars in the 90s, appeared occasionally in Iron Butterfly reunions in the next decades, died from a long battle with liver failure on 11/20/2024, age 76.
● Andy Paley / (Andrew Douglas Paley) → Multi-instrumentalist member of Boston power pop The Sidewinders with future star Billy Squier in the late 60s, then co-founder, with his brother Jonathan, of 70s teen pop The Paley Brothers, turned to songwriting and production in the 80s and worked on albums by Debbie Harry, NRBQ, Little Richard and others through the 90s, most famously comeback albums for Brian Wilson (Brian Wilson, #54, 1988) and Jerry Lee Lewis (Young Blood, #38, 1995), composed soundtracks for movies and TV in the 2000s, and wrote songs for various releases, including It’s A SpongeBob Christmas! Album (2012), all the while gigging with others and fronting his own orchestra, diagnosed with throat cancer in July 2024 and died from the disease on 11/20/2024, age 73.
November 21
● Alice Brock / (Alice May Pelkey Brock) → Former Berkshire Mountains artist and owner of the Back Room restaurant, the establishment became the subject of friend Arlo Guthrie’s anti-war song “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” (#97, 1969, commonly known as “Alice’s Restaurant”) from the 1967 movie of the same name, opened and closed two other restaurants in succession in the late 60s before moving to Cape Cod, MA, and living a bohemian lifestyle creating artwork and writing books to pay the bills, suffered from ill health in her last decade and died in hospice from COPD and heart failure on 11/21/2024, age 83.
November 22
● Harry Williams / (Harry Williams Jr.) → Original member and percussionist with doo wop the Sinceres, the Kansas City high school group formed in 1962 that morphed into 70s-80s R&B/soul-funk Bloodstone and charted thirteen singles over a decade, including the debut “Natural High” (#10, R&B #4, 1973), was the last original member still performing with Bloodstone at his death from undisclosed causes on 11/22/2024, age 80.
November 23
● Chuck Woolery / (Charles Herbert Woolery) → Aspiring folk- and psychedelic-pop singer in the 60s in the duo The Avant-Garde, wrote the their lone charting single, “Naturally Stoned” (#40, 1968) before trying to shift to country-pop without success, turned to acting and eventually found fame as a TV game- and talk show host on Wheel of Fortune in the 70s and Love Connection and several other programs from 1983 through 2007, started a controversial podcast, Blunt Force Truth, in 2014 to espouse conservative political and social views, died at home from undisclosed causes on 11/23/2024, age 83.
November 26
● Leah Kunkel / (Leah Rachel Cohen) → Younger sister of pop-rock singer “Mama” Cass Elliott and former wife of renowned session musician Russ Kunkel, recorded a non-charting solo single “Billy” (1968) as Cotton Candy and became an in-demand session vocalist in the 70s, providing backing vocals on albums by Jackson Browne, Stephen Bishop, James Taylor (“Handy Man,” #4, 1977) and many others, released two solo albums in 1979-80 and co-founded pop-rock trio The Coyote Sisters in 1984 with two AC Top 40 singles, returned to school in the late 80s and received a law degree, practiced entertainment law, served as a public defender and taught at a western Massachusetts college for 25 years, died from unspecified cancer on 11/26/2024, age 76.
November 30
● Steve Alaimo / (Stephen Charles Alaimo) → Member of late 50s instrumental rock ‘n’ roll The Redcoats (“I Want You To Love Me,” 1959), a chance meeting landed the group a gig as backing band for Dick Clark’s Caravan of Stars revue in Miami in 1959, after The Redcoats split, fronted a blue-eyed soul group in the early 60s before a later-60s teen idol career with nine Billboard Top 100 singles (but without a Top 40 hit – the most low-enders by any artist in history), also hosted and co-produced with Dick Clark the American Bandstand spinoff music variety show Where The Action Is (1965-67), moved to the production side of the soundboard as a producer for numerous artists and co-founded Miami-based TK Records in 1969, followed by his own Vision Records label in the late 80s and hits by K.C. & The Sunshine Band, continued as a fixture on the Miami music scene until his death from unspecified causes on 11/30/2024, age 84.
