Legendary guitarist Larry Coryell died Sunday

Legendary guitarist Larry Coryell died Sunday (Feb. 19) at the age of 73 in his New York City hotel room, according to statement sent to Billboard from jazz publicist Jim Eigo.
Coryell, who passed away in his sleep from natural causes, had performed his last two shows this past weekend at the city's Iridium Jazz Club.

Known as the "Godfather of Fusion," Coryell was a pioneer of jazz-rock. He made his mark in the music world with his highly acclaimed solo work, releasing more than 60 solo albums in his lifetime. Coryell performed with mid-'70s powerhouse fusion band The Eleventh House and collaborated with jazz greats including Miles Davis, Gary Burton, Alphonse Mouzon, Ron Carter and Chet Baker.
Though his commercial fame didn't match some of his '60s-'70s guitar contemporaries, Coryell continued to tour the world and had planned an extensive 2017 summer tour with a reformed The Eleventh House.

Coryell was born in Galveston, Texas, on April 2, 1943. He grew up near Seattle, where he began to play piano at the age of 4. In his teens, he picked up guitar, gravitating to rock music. Thinking he wasn't good enough to pursue a music career, Coryell studied journalism at The University of Washington while taking private guitar lessons. By 1965, he relocated to New York, where he studied classical guitar. He was influenced by Chet Atkins and Chuck Berry, jazzmen such as John Coltrane and Wes Montgomery, and the popular music of the day, including The Beatles, The Byrds and Bob Dylan.

His debut recording on drummer Chico Hamilton’s album The Dealer displays Coryell's melding of rock and jazz stylings. In 1966, he formed the psychedelic band The Free Spirits, on which he composed, sang and played the sitar. Three years later, he released two solo albums -- Lady Coryell and Coryell -- which mixed jazz, classical and rock ingredients.
His most notable album, Spaces, came in late 1969. The guitar blow-out, also featuring John McLaughlin, is considered the beginning of the 1970s' fusion jazz movement.

Coryell's most recent album, Barefoot Man: Sanpaku, was released October 14. The Eleventh House's new Seven Secrets LP is due to arrive June 2.
His final original works included operas based on Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace and Anna Karenina and James Joyce's Ulysses.
Coryell is survived by his wife, Tracey, four children and six grandchildren. A memorial service is being planned for Friday (Feb. 24) at the SGI-USA Buddhist temple in New York.

World-renowned blues harmonica master James Cotton, whom Rolling Stone called, “One of the greats of all time, burning with brilliant virtuosity,” died on March 16, 2017 of pneumonia at St. David's Medical Center in Austin, Texas. He was 81. His overwhelmingly powerful harmonica playing was one of the iconic sounds of the blues. He toured worldwide for over 60 years.

James Henry Cotton, known as “Mr. Superharp,” recorded nearly 30 solo albums, winning one Grammy Award, six Living Blues Awards and 10 Blues Music Awards. He was inducted into the Blues Hall Of Fame in 2006. The New York Daily News called him, “The greatest blues harmonica player of all time.” NPR Weekend Edition said, “Conjure up a list of all-time great blues harmonica players, and high up on it you'll see the name James Cotton.”

Born on a cotton plantation in Tunica, Mississippi on July 1, 1935, Cotton was a working musician by age nine. He learned harmonica directly from Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller), toured with Williamson and Howlin’ Wolf, and recorded for Sun Records in 1953 before spending 12 years touring and recording with Muddy Waters (starting at age 20). Cotton was featured on Muddy’s famous 1960 At Newport LP on Chess Records, including the iconic version of Got My Mojo Working, one of the classic recordings of Chicago Blues. After his 1953 Sun sessions, Cotton didn’t record under his own name again until the mid-1960s, with tracks included in the groundbreaking Chicago/The Blues/Today! series of LPs on Vanguard. Along with Otis Spann, he cut The Blues Never Die! for Prestige.

In 1966 he formed The James Cotton Band, quickly earning a reputation as one of the most commanding and potent live blues performers in the world—a man who could literally suck the reeds out of his harmonica from the pure force of his playing. He made his initial solo albums, three for Verve and one for Vanguard, in the late 1960s. With bands featuring outstanding musicians including famed guitarists Luther Tucker, Matt “Guitar” Murphy and Hubert Sumlin, he quickly rose to the top of the blues and rock worlds. It wasn’t long before Cotton, with his gale-force sound and fearless boogie band, was adopted by the burgeoning hippie audience as one of their own. Cotton shared stages with Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, B.B. King, Santana, Steve Miller, Freddie King and many others.
Cotton’s blistering talent and full-throttle energy kept him in demand at concert halls all over the country. He played the Fillmore East in New York, the Fillmore West in San Francisco and every major rock and blues venue in between. During the 1970s, he cut three albums for Buddah and one for Capitol. He rejoined his old boss Muddy Waters for a series of Muddy albums produced by Johnny Winter, starting with Hard Again in 1977. Cotton also guested on recordings by Koko Taylor, Steve Miller, Memphis Slim, Hubert Sumlin and many others. He was joined on his own albums by stars like Todd Rundgren, Steve Miller, Johnny Winter, Dr. John, David Sanborn, Charlie Haden, Michael Bloomfield and Cissy Houston. Cotton signed with Alligator Records in 1984, releasing two solo albums and the famed Harp Attack! with Junior Wells, Carey Bell and Billy Branch. He won a Grammy Award in 1996 for his Verve album, Deep In The Blues and recorded four albums for Telarc Records before returning to Alligator in 2010. His most recent recording was 2013’s Grammy-nominated Cotton Mouth Man.

In June 2010, Cotton was honored by New York’s Lincoln Center, where his friends Hubert Sumlin, Pinetop Perkins, Taj Mahal, Shemekia Copeland and others paid tribute to him in an all-star concert. The Festival International de Jazz de Montréal honored Cotton with their 2015 B.B. King Award for his seven decades of contributions to the blues. Throughout his entire career, Cotton’s blast-furnace harmonica sound and larger-than-life personality always remained a true force of nature, described by USA Today as “devastating and powerful…carrying the Chicago sound to the world.”

Cotton is survived by his wife, Jacklyn Hairston Cotton, daughters Teresa Hampton of Seattle, Washington, and Marshall Ann Cotton of Peoria, Illinois and son James Patrick Cotton of Chicago, Illinois, as well as numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Chuck Berry has died

Legendary musician Chuck Berry has died, police confirm. He was 90.

The St. Charles County Police Department in Missouri that they responded to a medical emergency on Saturday afternoon where they found an unresponsive man.

“St. Charles County police responded to a medical emergency on Buckner Road at approximately 12:40 p.m. today (Saturday, March 18),” the police department said in a statement. “Inside the home, first responders observed an unresponsive man and immediately administered lifesaving techniques. Unfortunately, the 90-year-old man could not be revived and was pronounced deceased at 1:26 p.m. “The St. Charles County Police Department sadly confirms the death of Charles Edward Anderson Berry Sr., better known as legendary musician Chuck Berry.”

“The family requests privacy during this time of bereavement.”

Chuck Berry died of natural causes, and no autopsy is planned. The rock icon died at age 90 on Saturday (March 18) in St. Louis after police responded to a call of a medical emergency and attempts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful.

The site reported that Berry's personal doctor is expected to sign off on the death certificate claiming the death was natural, though it was unclear at press time what, if any, diseases might have contributed to his death. A spokesperson for Berry could not be reached for additional comment at press time. Just hours before on Monday morning (March 20), Berry's family released a statement revealing that the details of the guitarist's final album, titled CHUCK, will be released this week. "Working to prepare the release of this record in recent months and in fact over the last several years brought Chuck a great sense of joy and satisfaction,"

The news that Berry would break a four-decade hiatus from releasing studio albums came on, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer's 90th birthday.
"While our hearts are very heavy at this time, we know that Chuck had no greater wish than to see this album released to the world, and we know of no better way to celebrate and remember his 90 years of life than through his music," the family continued in the statement. The album is being released by Dualtone Records and more information on it will reportedly be available in the coming days.

J. Geils of 1980s J. Geils band found dead in his Groton, Mass. home

John Warren Geils Jr., the artist known professionally as J. Geils who gave his name to the 1980s rock group he founded, The J. Geils Band, was found dead in his Groton, Mass., home Tuesday. He was 71.

Groton Chief of Police Donald Palma Jr. confirmed the death, adding in a press release that a preliminary investigation "indicates that Geils died of natural causes."
Palma said that because the death was "unattended," it will be investigated but "foul play is not suspected at this time." He said Groton police went to the home around 4 p.m. ET in response to a well-being check and found Geils unresponsive.

Geils was a vocalist and guitarist for The J. Geils Band, which he formed in Worcester, Mass., in 1967, when he was attending school at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
In the 1970s, the band achieved success with a bluesy-rock sound and built up a strong following by constant touring, opening for such bands as The Allman Brothers and The Byrds. They were known for their use of the harmonica as a lead instrument.

They moved to a more mainstream hit-making new-wave sound in the 1980s. Their third album, Freeze Frame, was No. 1 for four weeks in 1983, and its hit song, Centerfold, was No. 1 for six weeks on the Billboard Top 100. Another song fans might remember from 1980: The humorous Love Stinks.

The band broke up in 1985 but got back together for reunions regularly.

Allan Holdsworth Dies

Allan Holdsworth, known as a guitarist’s guitarist for his progressive rock and jazz fusion work with bands including Soft Machine, Gong, and U.K., died on Sunday, according to a Facebook post from his daughter Louise. He was 70.

Born in Bradford, England, Holdsworth had lived in Southern California for several decades. His complex guitar work was cited as an influence by musicians such as Eddie Van Halen and Robben Ford.
Holdsworth started out playing with rock and jazz fusion bands in the early ’70s and then joined up with acts from the Canterbury progressive scene, including Soft Machine and Pierre Moerlen’s Gong. He played with bassist Stanley Clarke, King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford’s solo act, and with violinist Jean-Luc Ponty’s band, and was then recruited to join progressive supergroup U.K. with Bruford, violinist Eddie Jobson, and bassist John Wetton. But he objected to the organized structures of a major touring band and left the group after its first self-titled album in 1978.

From the 1980s onward, Holdsworth released a number of jazz fusion solo albums with collaborators including Gordon Beck and Mark Varney, and continued to tour. “Road Games,” from 1983, received a Grammy nomination for best rock instrumental performance. An early proponent of the guitar synthesizer, he endorsed instruments for the SynthAxe company in the 1980s. Reverb magazine described Holdworth’s music as, “This was quantum jazz fusion with a Fripp-esque legato style and truly otherworldly tones.”

Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell Dies.

Rocker Chris Cornell, who gained fame as the lead singer of the bands Soundgarden and Audioslave, has died at age 52, and police said Thursday that his death is being investigated as a possible suicide. Cornell, who had been on tour, died Wednesday night in Detroit, Cornell’s representative Brian Bumbery said in a statement to The Associated Press. Cornell had performed a Detroit concert with Soundgarden that night. Bumbery called the death “sudden and unexpected” and said his wife and family are in shock. The statement said the family would be working closely with the medical examiner to determine the cause and have asked for privacy.

Detroit police spokesman Michael Woody told AP Thursday morning that he couldn’t release details about why police are investigating the death as a possible suicide, but noted there were “basic things observed at the scene.” Cornell died at the MGM Grand Detroit hotel, Woody said. He said Cornell’s wife had called a family friend and asked him to check on Cornell; the friend forced open a hotel room door and found Cornell on the bathroom floor. The Wayne County Medical Examiner’s office will make an official determination about the cause of death.

News of Cornell’s death prompted scores of tweets expressing sadness. Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry tweeted: “Very sad news about Chris Cornell today. A sad loss of a great talent to the world, his friends and family. Rest In Peace.”

With his powerful, nearly four-octave vocal range, Cornell was one of the leading voices of the 1990s grunge movement with Soundgarden, which emerged as one of the biggest bands out of Seattle’s emerging music scene, joining the likes of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains.

Soundgarden disbanded in 1997 due to tensions in the band, and Cornell pursued a solo career. In 2001, he joined Audioslave, a supergroup that included former Rage Against the Machine members Tom Morello, Brad Wilk and Tim Commerford. The band released three albums in six years and also performed at a concert billed as Cuba’s first outdoor rock concert by an American band, though some Cuban artists have disputed that claim.

Audioslave disbanded in 2007, but Cornell and Soundgarden reunited in 2010 and released the band’s sixth studio album, “King Animal” in 2012.

Cornell also released four solo studio albums and a solo live album. He released the single “The Promise” in March on iTunes, with all proceeds going to the International Rescue Committee, a global humanitarian aid, relief, and development non-governmental organization. In addition to his music, Cornell also became involved in philanthropy and started the Chris and Vicky Cornell Foundation to support children facing challenges, including homelessness, poverty, abuse and neglect.

Cornell add:
Chris Cornell’s family has issued a statement questioning the coroner’s report that the singer intentionally took his own life on Thursday.
“Without the results of toxicology tests, we do not know what was going on with Chris—or if any substances contributed to his demise,” the Cornell family said.

The 52 year-old vocalist had a prescription for Ativan, the family shared, and may have taken a higher dosage that impaired his judgement. Attorney Kirk Pasich noted that Ativan can cause paranoid or suicidal thoughts and slurred speech. Ativan is a tranquilizer and anti-anxiety medication that is sometimes used as a sleeping aid. Cornell was a recovering addict and had allegedly been sober since 2002. His wife, Vicky, said in an emotional statement, “Chris’s death is a loss that escapes words and has created an emptiness in my heart that will never be filled. As everyone who knew him commented, Chris was a devoted father and husband.”

She said Cornell flew home from Soundgarden’s tour the weekend before to spend time with his wife and children, before returning to the mid-west. The Seattle rocker was found dead in his hotel bathroom at 12:05 a.m. ET on Thursday. Soundgarden had played a show just hours before at Detroit’s Fox Theater. His death was ruled a suicide by hanging, the local medical examiner reported Thursday, but Cornell’s family called the suicide declarations “disturbing.” “When we spoke after the show, I noticed he was slurring his words; he was different,” his wife added. “When he told me he may have taken an extra Ativan or two, I contacted security and asked that they check on him.”

Gregg Allman Dies

Gregg Allman, the soulful singer-songwriter and rock 'n' blues pioneer who founded The Allman Brothers Band with his late brother, Duane, and composed such classics as "Midnight Rider," "Melissa" and the epic concert jam "Whipping Post," has died at age 69. He was diagnosed with hepatitis C in 1999 and underwent a liver transplant in 2010.
Allman "passed away peacefully at his home in Savannah, Georgia," read a statement posted to the singer's official website, noting that the family planned to release a statement soon. "Gregg struggled with many health issues over the past several years. During that time, Gregg considered being on the road playing music with his brothers and solo band for his beloved fans, essential medicine for his soul. Playing music lifted him up and kept him going during the toughest of times." Gregg's longtime manager and close friend Michael Lehman said, "I have lost a dear friend and the world has lost a brilliant pioneer in music. He was a kind and gentle soul with the best laugh I ever heard. His love for his family and bandmates was passionate as was the love he had for his extraordinary fans. Gregg was an incredible partner and an even better friend. We will all miss him."Gregg is survived by his wife, Shannon Allman, his children, Devon, Elijah Blue, Delilah Island Kurtom and Layla Brooklyn Allman; 3 grandchildren, his niece, Galadrielle Allman, lifelong friend Chank Middleton, and a large extended family.

With his long blond hair, cool facade and songs that chronicled restless, wounded lives, Allman came to personify the sexy, hard-living rock outlaw in a life marked by musical triumph and calamitous loss. Allman fronted his band for 45 years, first alongside Duane and then as its sole namesake, after his older brother - regarded as one of the most influential guitarists in rock history - was killed in a motorcycle accident in November 1971, just as their trailblazing Southern rock tracks were taking hold on the charts.Soldiering on through grief and then the eerily similar death of bassist Berry Oakley just one year and 10 days after Duane died, Allman and the band became as well known for their stoic survival as they were for their freewheeling concerts.After years of tragedy, dramatic breakups and tense reconciliations, a reconstituted Allman Brothers Band engineered a renaissance starting in the mid-'90s that put their fiery brew of old-time blues, jazz and country rock squarely at the forefront of music's thriving jam scene


The Allmans' annual rite of spring - a three-week run of shows typically held every March at the historic Beacon Theatre on New York's Upper West Side - remade the band into a formidable commercial force in recent decades, long after many in the music industry had written them off.A gentle and at times fierce balladeer, Allman would spend the majority of these shows behind his Hammond organ, taking center stage only briefly, usually with his acoustic guitar for "Melissa," which would start quietly and then blossom into a freeform jam.With 238 concerts at the Beacon from 1989-2014, the Allmans had become such an important tenant that when the theater's new owner, The Madison Square Garden Co., announced plans for a renovation in 2006, Allman was consulted. His plain-spoken advice to executives: "Just don't screw it up."Gregory LeNoir Allman was born in Nashville on Dec. 8, 1947, slightly more than a year after Duane. Tragedy struck early for the brothers when their father, Willis Turner Allman, an Army captain who had just returned home, was shot and killed in 1949 while helping a hitchhiker. The family moved to Daytona Beach, Fla., but Allman returned to Nashville often to visit relatives, developing an interest in music while there, particularly after seeing a concert featuring Otis Redding, B.B. King, Jackie Wilson and Patti LaBelle on one life-changing bill.
He bought his first guitar for $21.95 at Sears, but soon Duane was demanding to play it. The brothers became so consumed by their music, and so intent on continuing, that Gregg deliberately shot himself in one foot to gain a medical exemption from the Vietnam draft. (He had studied a skeletal chart to find the least damaging place to shoot.)

One of their early bands, The Escorts, evolved into the moderately successful Allman Joys. They toured the South relentlessly, endured an ill-fated label deal in California and were signed - along with Oakley, guitarist Dickey Betts and drummers Jai Johanny "Jaimoe" Johanson and Butch Trucks - as The Allman Brothers Band by Macon, Ga.-based Capricorn Records in 1969.The guys were enjoying a first rush of mainstream fame with the release of their third album, the landmark live set At Fillmore East, when Duane was killed in Macon after the motorcycle that he was piloting swerved to avoid a truck and crashed. He was 24.Still in shock, the band quickly resumed work on 1972's Eat a Peach, highlighted by its haunting opening track, "Ain't Wasting Time No More," Allman's enduring tribute to his brother. They summoned their strength once again after Oakley's death - also from a motorcycle crash just blocks from where Duane had been fatally injured - adding new members and recording 1973's Brothers and Sisters. That disc remained No. 1 on Billboard's album chart for five weeks and featured the Betts classics "Jessica" and "Ramblin' Man."The Allmans' fame grew exponentially, and in 1973 they played before a record-breaking 600,000 fans at The Summer Jam at Watkins Glen, N.Y., alongside the Grateful Dead and The Band. But in 1976, the group would endure the first of several rancorous splits, which saw Allman clashing most intensely with Betts for control. (The guitarist would be fired in 2000.)

In 1975, Allman, then 27, was downing a quart of vodka a day, hooked on heroin and already on his third marriage - this time to Cher, the '60s pop icon who was then a star of CBS variety shows, first with former husband Sonny Bono and then on her own. But just nine days into the new union, Cher, distressed by Allman's drug use, walked out.
They reconciled, had a son, Elijah Blue Allman, and briefly became a recording duo, billing themselves as Allman and Woman. Their one record together, 1977's Two the Hard Way, was disparaged by critics and their divergent fan bases and was a particularly tough sell given Cher's professional reunion with Bono for a new CBS show at the time. Allman and Cher divorced in 1979.
During this era, Allman also was something of a grassroots political activist, helping put a little-known Jimmy Carter into the White House with an endless run of fundraising concerts. (When Macon's Mercer University bestowed an honorary doctorate upon Allman in May 2016, it was Carter who presented it.)In a 2015 interview with Dan Rather, Allman detailed his many failed attempts at rehab and how the stage could numb just about any kind of pain."I've walked onstage with an abscessed tooth and as soon as you get out there, it goes away," Allman said. "Walk offstage, it comes back. It's the land of no pain."

His determination to rebuild The Allman Brothers Band dovetailed with his first long stretch of sobriety, finally accomplished at age 47, soon after he saw a replay of his incoherent appearance during the group's 1995 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They received Grammy's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012.
By the time The Allman Brothers Band had added 20-year-old guitar prodigy Derek Trucks (nephew of the founding drummer) in 2000, they were finally settling into their most stable groove in three decades - a 15-year finale of sorts that lasted until the younger Trucks and fellow guitarist Warren Haynes decided to leave. The band called it day with one final Beacon run in 2014.

That same year, Allman was again linked with tragedy: The movie-set death of camera assistant Sarah Jones, who was working on the indie biopic Midnight Rider, based on Allman's 2012 autobiography, My Cross to Bear. After Jones was killed and six others injured, director Randall Miller wanted to continue with the film, but Allman begged him to drop the project. A prolific solo artist who also toured and recorded through the decades with his own Gregg Allman Band, he had his biggest solo radio hit in 1987, the catchy "I'm No Angel," which reached the top spot on Billboard's Album Rock Tracks chart.His nine solo albums included All My Friends, recorded at a 2014 tribute concert to him at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, and 2015's Live: Back to Macon, GA. A new studio album, Southern Blood, is scheduled to be released this year. Allman canceled a round of concert dates in 2016 but got back on the road briefly last fall, performing his last known shows at his own Laid Back Festivals - Sept. 25 at Red Rocks Amphitheatre outside Denver and Oct. 29 at Lakewood Amphitheatre in Atlanta. He endured yet more heartbreak in January when Butch Trucks committed suicide at age 69.

In March, Allman announced that he was canceling all shows in 2017 and offered refunds to fans. His last song on stage appears to have been "One Way Out."

Linkin Park Frontman Chester Bennington Found Dead of Apparent Suicide

Chester Bennington, lead singer of the band Linkin Park, has been found dead in his home, the L.A. County Coroner’s Office confirms to PEOPLE. He was 41.
Law enforcement officials responded to an emergency call from Bennington’s home in Palos Verdes Estates, California, around 9 a.m., an officer told PEOPLE. TMZ reports Bennington hanged himself and was discovered by an employee.

Bennington’s band mate, guitarist and vocalist Mike Shinoda, confirmed the news on Twitter Thursday, writing: “Shocked and heartbroken, but it’s true. An official statement will come out as soon as we have one.” The rock frontman was a close friend of Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell — who also committed suicide by hanging and spoke at his funeral. Bennington’s body was found on what would have been Cornell’s 53 birthday.

Born in Phoenix, Arizona on March 20, 1976, Bennington suffered several childhood traumas that would haunt his life for years to come. His parents divorced when he was 11 and he was sent to live with his father, a police detective who specialized in child sex abuse case. It wasn’t until years later that Bennington revealed that he was a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of an older male friend beginning at just 7 years old.

“It escalated from a touchy, curious, ‘what does this thing do’ into full-on, crazy violations,” he told Kernag . “I was getting beaten up and being forced to do things I didn’t want to do. It destroyed my self-confidence. Like most people, I was too afraid to say anything. I didn’t want people to think I was gay or that I was lying. It was a horrible experience. The sexual assaults continued until I was 13.” He eventually told his father about the abuse, but declined to pursue the case when he learned that the abuser was himself a victim. “I didn’t need revenge,” he told the Guardian later.
The splintered family life coupled with vicious molestations triggered feelings of intense rage in the boy, and he sought solace in drugs. As a young teen he began using marijuana, opium, cocaine, meth, and LSD, as well as alcohol. High school was no less of a refuge. “I was knocked around like a rag doll at school, for being skinny and looking different,” he said later. At 17 he was sent to live with his mother, who largely confined him to the house when she learned of his burgeoning drug abuse.

By the end of high school he began to explore music, notably in the Phoenix-area band Grey Daze. The group released three albums between 1993 and 1997, but failed to make an impact on the industry. On Halloween 1996, he married his first wife, Samantha Marie Olit, and worked at a digital services firm to make ends meet while he tried to make a living from his band.
Discouraged, he nearly quit music altogether until Jeff Blue, the Vice President of A&R at Zomba Music in Los Angeles, suggested he audition with a group called Xero, who were looking to replace their recently departed lead singer. Bennington recorded an audition song—missing his birthday celebration in the process—and got the job in the spring of 1999, playing alongside Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson, Rob Bourdon, and Joe Hahn. They eventually took the name Linkin Park in honor of Santa Monica’s Lincoln Park.

The band were rejected by nearly all the major (and independent) labels until Blue, now with Warner Brothers, signed them and financed sessions to re-record nine songs off their 1999 demo tape. This formed the basis of their breakthrough smash, Hybrid Theory, which became the best selling album 2001 and ultimately was certified Platinum by the RIAA. Many of they lyrics on the album inspired by the tumultuous emotions swirling inside Bennington as a result of his tortured upbringing. “It’s easy to fall into that thing – ‘poor, poor me’, that’s where songs like ‘Crawling’ come from: I can’t take myself,”he told Rolling Stone in 2002. “But that song is about taking responsibility for your actions. I don’t say ‘you’ at any point. It’s about how I’m the reason that I feel this way. There’s something inside me that pulls me down.”

He leaves behind six children from his two marriages.

John Abercrombie, influential jazz guitarist of the ’70s fusion scene, dies at 72

John Abercrombie, a jazz guitarist whose lyrical style placed him in his generation’s top tier of improvising musicians, died on Tuesday in Cortlandt Manor, N.Y. He was 72.
The cause was heart failure, his brother-in-law, Gary Lefkowitz, said.

Mr. Abercrombie became known in the mid-1970s as a prominent jazz-rock guitarist. But as his style evolved and he moved away from fusion, it was his knack for understatement and his affinity for classic jazz guitar technique that defined his approach.

He played in bands led by the drummer Jack DeJohnette and the saxophonist Gato Barbieri, among others, before ECM Records released his first album as a leader, “Timeless,” in 1975. On that album he ranged from sharp-edged electric fusion dosed with Indian classical influence to ballads of wandering irresolution and on to barreling post-bop, all the while displaying an overwhelming facility and a responsive touch on both acoustic and electric guitar. ECM was quickly becoming one of the most respected institutions in jazz, and Mr. Abercrombie remained one of its flagship artists. He released a well-received album, “Up and Coming,” on the label in January.

“Timeless” and his other early recordings established the imperatives that would always guide him: Whether playing with sparse accompaniment or a clutch of other chordal instruments, he tended to play a melodic role, tracing bulbous shapes or sheer lines, and rarely beefed up his solos with chunks of harmony. He was an expert at finding the moments of opportunity in a band’s interplay but resisting the urge to overly exploit them.
Reviewing a duo performance with the bassist George Mraz at the Greenwich Village nightclub Bradley’s in 1986, John S. Wilson of The New York Times wrote, “Mr. Abercrombie has a light, keyboard-like manner of developing performances, sometimes spreading from a sweeping line of single notes to a fullness that suggests an organ.” On ballads, he added, “he moves through light, almost diaphanous lines that gain in strength through their rhythmic flow and increasing melodic exposition.”
Like most guitarists of his time and ilk, Mr. Abercrombie avidly explored innovations in technology, but he refused to let his gear define his approach. He played a guitar synthesizer for a few years in the 1980s and early ’90s, but eventually abandoned it. He used a small array of effects pedals for much of his career, though even on spacey, synthesizer-driven music he prized clear articulation and harmonic forbearance.

John Laird Abercrombie was born in Port Chester, N.Y., on Dec. 16, 1944, the only child of John and Elizabeth Abercrombie, domestic workers who had immigrated from Scotland. The family soon moved to adjacent Greenwich, Conn., where Mr. Abercrombie grew up.
In recent years he lived in Putnam County, N.Y., with his wife of 31 years, the former Lisa Abrams, who survives him.

As a child, Mr. Abercrombie first fell in love with the guitar listening to country and early rock ’n’ roll, then had his expectations scrambled by the jazz guitar of Wes Montgomery and Barney Kessel.
ealized that they had a different way to play than a lot of the other guys from their generation, and I liked the way they played better,” he said in a 2012 interview with the website notesontheroad.com. “Somehow it seemed more melodic, more lyrical; there was more space.”

He played in rock bands as a teenager, and in 1962 he enrolled in the Berklee School of Music (now Berklee College of Music) in Boston. After graduating he worked with the soul-jazz organist Johnny (Hammond) Smith before moving to New York City in 1970 to join the drummer Chico Hamilton’s band. Mr. Abercrombie played with a handful of rising musicians inhabiting the divide between avant-garde improvisation, jazz tradition and hard rock. He recorded with Mr. Barbieri, Mr. DeJohnette, the trumpeter Enrico Rava and the drummer Billy Cobham, whose highly regarded band, Spectrum, conjured a dense, astral brand of fusion. From the mid-1970s onward he recorded a stream of impressive albums for ECM, including “Gateway” (1976), with Mr. DeJohnette and the bassist Dave Holland, and “Getting There” (1988), a synthesizer-driven quartet date with guitars overdubbed on top of one another but with plenty of airspace in between. Mr. Abercrombie frequently performed in acoustic duos and trios, never forswearing his devotion to the classic jazz repertoire. Although much in demand as a sideman, he increasingly stuck to leading his own bands. Over the last 20 years he assembled a range of quartets, often including the violinist Mark Feldman and the drummer Joey Baron, with whom he tended toward a light-footed, chamberlike approach, often moving into free improvising.

Starting in 2012, he worked with a more traditionally structured but equally distinctive quartet, featuring his longtime associate Marc Copland on piano. That group recorded two albums for ECM, “39 Steps” and “Up and Coming.” Speaking to The Ottawa Citizen in 2014, Mr. Abercrombie said: “Even a tune you play over and over again — if you keep it fresh in your mind and you approach it with a fresh outlook, then it stays fresh. You don’t have to find new and exciting types of music to play.” He added, “That stuff just happens when your attitude is really good, when you approach things with an open mind.”

Walter Becker, guitarist, bassist & co-writer for the sophisticated, dark-humored band Steely Dan, has died

Walter Becker, guitarist, bassist & co-writer for the sophisticated, dark-humored band Steely Dan, has died. He was 67. No cause of death was announced.

The more retiring full-term member of the group, Becker was partnered with singer-keyboardist and co-writer Donald Fagen on a string of jazzy, sleekly produced singles and albums that ruled the charts during the ‘70s. After a protracted hiatus, “the Dan” returned to popularity in the ‘90s; their 2000 album “Two Against Nature” collected four Grammys, including one for album of the year.
The pair’s gimlet-eyed, covertly perverse music, garbed in gleaming pop melodies, bebop-derived harmonies and shimmering production, was variously performed with a core working band in the group’s initial heyday; those players were ultimately, and permanently, supplanted by a rotating cast of mostly jazz-schooled studio sidemen.

Becker was largely absent from the musical stage during Steely Dan’s extended separation from 1981-93. It was only after the group’s reunion that he undertook solo recording: His albums “11 Tracks of Whack” (produced by Fagen in 1994) and “Circus Money” (2008) failed to duplicate the band’s success.

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Fagen in 2001; with typical dry humor, the pair tersely solicited questions from the star-filled audience during one of the shortest acceptance speeches on record.

Becker was born Feb. 20, 1950 in Queens, N.Y., and was raised in the borough community. Initially a saxophonist, he took up the guitar as a teen. He encountered his future partner Fagen as a student at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, while playing a gig at the local club the Red Balloon. In his 2013 memoir “Eminent Hipsters,” Fagen – who studied music and English at the school — recalled, “His amp was tweaked to produce a fat, mellow sound, and turned up loud enough to generate a healthy Albert King-like sustain.” The musicians bonded over their love of jazz and blues and the writing of such novelists as Vladimir Nabokov and humorists Bruce Jay Friedman and Terry Southern. They performed together in a number of campus bands, including one, the Leather Canary, which included classmate and future “Saturday Night Live” star Chevy Chase on drums.

Becker withdrew from Bard without a diploma; after Fagen graduated in 1969, the musicians moved to Brooklyn to find work in the professional music business. They served as studio members of the pop act Jay and the Americans. In 1971, the duo decamped to Los Angeles to serve as house songwriters for ABC/Dunhill, the publishing firm operated by the Americans’ record label.
Impressed by Fagen and Becker’s songwriting, label president Jay Lasker offered the pair a contract with the label. They organized a working group with New York guitarist Denny Dias, guitarist Jeff “Skunk” Baxter and drummer Jimmy Hodder; on early recordings with this lineup, Becker usually served as bassist.

Dubbed Steely Dan after a like-named sex toy in William S. Burroughs’ black-hearted novel “Naked Lunch,” the unit debuted in 1972 with the LP “Can’t Buy a Thrill.” Produced by Gary Katz (who shepherded all the act’s ‘70s releases), it spawned the massive radio hit “Do It Again,” which climbed to No. 6; the follow-up single “Reeling in the Years” peaked at No. 11.
The sophomore set “Countdown to Ecstasy” (1973) – which included “My Old School,” a backhanded tribute to Fagen and Becker’s alma mater Bard – was perhaps too bitter for most listeners and failed to produce any hits. However, album rockers lofted the 1974 collection “Pretzel Logic” to No. 8. Driven mainly by the work of such jazz-bred sidemen as saxophonists Jerome Richardson and Ernie Watts and bassist Wilton Felder of the Crusaders, the album included the No. 4 single “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” which baldly lifted the keyboard hook of jazz keyboardist Horace Silver’s “Song For My Father.”

Growing tension within the band and Fagen and Becker’s antipathy for touring led to the dissolution of the touring Steely Dan configuration in 1974, and the duo would thereafter perform with a succession of studio musicians. Becker increasingly took on lead guitar chores, though such players as Lee Ritenour, Rick Derringer, Dean Parks, Elliott Randall, Larry Carlton and Mark Knopfler also contributed. The albums “Katie Lied” (No. 13, 1975) and “The Royal Scam” (No. 15, 1976) bore no hit singles, but were lofted by FM radio play. The group’s biggest early hit came with “Aja,” a shimmering No. 3 set that included the top-20 singles “Peg” and “Deacon Blues.” A confluence of difficulties led to the band’s 1981 dissolution. The prolonged making of “Gaucho,” which contained Steely Dan’s final top-10 hit “Hey Nineteen,” witnessed burgeoning antipathy between the two long-running partners.

“It was the ‘Gaucho’ album that finished us off,’ Becker said in a 1994 interview with England’s Independent. “We had pursued an idea beyond the point where it was practical. That album took about two years, and we were working on it all of that time – all these endless tracking sessions involving different musicians. It took forever and it was a very painful process.”
The personality clashes were exacerbated by a lawsuit engendered by the drug overdose death of Fagen’s girlfriend Karen Stanley and a serious injury sustained by Becker when he was struck by a New York cab.

Becker retreated to the Hawaiian island of Maui, where he grappled with drug abuse and laid low. “I spent a couple of years not doing any music or anything, just here in Hawaii trying to get healthy and adjust to the new regimen I was setting up for myself,” he told England’s Mojo magazine in 1995. He crept back to work as a producer, helming albums by China Crisis (“Flaunt the Imperfection,” 1985), Rickie Lee Jones (“Flying Cowboys,” 1989) and Michael Franks (“Blue Pacific,” 1990). His work on Rosie Vela’s 1986 collection “Zazu” marked his first work with Fagen since the breakup of Steely Dan; five years later, he gigged informally with Fagen’s group the New York Rock and Soul Revue, which harbingered the partnership’s touring reunion in 1993 in support of the comprehensive boxed set “Citizen Steely Dan.”

An extended period of studio work resulted in the self-produced “Two Against Nature,” which climbed to No. 6 and collected new kudos. The following year, Bard dropout Becker and partner Fagen received honorary music doctorates from the Berklee College of Music. A second new Steely Dan release, the No. 9 set “Everything Must Go” (2003), included Becker’s first-ever lead vocal with the group, on the track “Slang of Ages.” In later years, Becker also served as a writer for the jazzy vocalist Madeleine Peyroux’s “Half the Perfect World” (2006) and “Bare Bones” (2009).

Figured I'd beat Rick to it. R.I.P. Holger Czukay. :-(

https://consequenceofsound.net/2017/09/holger-czukay-can-co-founder-and-bassist-has-died-at-79/?wasp=facebook-ads

RIP ;(

Goddammit this is the first time hearing about this.

Tom Petty Dead

Tom Petty, the rocker best known as the frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, is dead at 66, CBS News has confirmed.
The legendary musician suffered a full cardiac arrest and was found unconscious and not breathing in his Malibu home Sunday night. He was taken to UCLA Santa Monica Hospital and put on life support, reports TMZ.

Petty rose to fame in the 1970s with his band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The group put out several hits, including "American Girl," "Free Fallin'," "Breakdown," "Listen to Her Heart" and more. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. Though Petty and his band debuted their first self-titled record in 1976, they continued to perform over the past four decades. Petty played his last show last Monday, performing three sold-out shows at the Hollywood Bowl to conclude their 40th anniversary tour. The band wrote on their website that the tour included 53 shows in 24 states. In December, Petty told Rolling Stone that he thought this would be the group's last tour together.

He said, "It's very likely we'll keep playing, but will we take on 50 shows in one tour? I don't think so. I'd be lying if I didn't say I was thinking this might be the last big one. We're all on the backside of our sixties. I have a granddaughter now I'd like to see as much as I can. I don't want to spend my life on the road. This tour will take me away for four months. With a little kid, that's a lot of time."
Petty, who released three solo albums and 13 albums with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, also took part in the 1980s supergroup the Traveling Wilburys with Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne.

The rocker kept his hands full with his SiriusXM channel, Tom Petty Radio, as well. He personally oversaw the station and had his own interview show called "Tom Talks to Cool People" where he interviewed musicians like Micky Dolenz of the Monkees and former Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham.