Guess who died in 2023

[Edgy MD]

Rest in punk to Brooklyn's own Seymour Stein, founder of Sire Records and veep of Warner Brothers, who signed The Ramones, The Pretenders, and Talking Heads, as well as a fantastic bunch lower down on his roster that included The Replacements, Depeche Mode, The Smiths, The Cure, Ice-T, Ministry, The Undertones, and Echo & the Bunnymen.

He also signed Madonna, but you can't win 'em all. He was moving to sign Jimi Hendrix early on, but he took a pass, because he didn't like the way Hendrix treated Linda Keith.

[Frayed Knot]

Typically, the news feed I read captioned their story with 'Music Exec Who Signed Madonna'

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

I read his book was pretty good as I remember it

[Edgy MD]

Another punk salute must go to Nora Foster, mother of Slits leader Ari Up. She had been an old acquaintance of Jimi Hendrix who was later dating Sex Pistols producer Chris Spedding, turning her home into London's punk flophouse for poor musicians, ultimately falling for Johnny Rotten/John Lydon and marrying him, a union that would last 44 years.

[kcmets]

Good short piece here...

[metirish]

Fresh Air on NPR had a listen back to some previous interviews Friday, some great stories

[metirish]

[G-Fafif]

Cross-posting from Baseball Passings thread, actor Michael Lerner, 81. Among many roles, he was a perfectly cynical handler in my favorite movie, The Candidate.

https://variety.com/2023/film/obituarie ... 235577894/

[Benjamin Grimm]

Al Jaffe, of Mad Magazine. 102 years young. He was known for the Mad Fold-ins and Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Loved AL Jaffee. Was an acquaintance of my dad

[Frayed Knot]

Yeah, I met Jaffee a couple times.
Once told me he never liked doing the fold-ins.
Don't remember his reason why.

[Fman99]

Michael Lerner, one of those "that guy" actors, age 81. He gets cited often for his role in "Barton Fink," for which he got an Oscar nomination, but I tend to think first of him as Bugsy Calhoun in the Eddie Murphy movie "Harlem Nights."

OE: Sorry, missed G's post up there ^

[batmagadanleadoff]

Potrzebie.

[MFS62]

More about Al Jaffe (from a Facebook Yiddish word of the day page):

His parents were Jewish immigrants from Zarasai, Lithuania. In addition to MAD, he also contributed to a CHABAD publication The Mosiach Times from which I found this illustration. Al Jaffee reinvented a character called “the Shpy.” Part-fumbling secret agent and part-Torah scholar, “the Shpy,” clad in a trench coat with his hat pulled over his eyes and an attaché case filled with every conceivable gadget, is tasked with doing battle against the Yetzer Hora, the evil inclination. With a career running from 1942 until 2020, Jaffee holds the Guinness World Record for having the longest career as a comic artist.

The accompanying cartoon had characters who looked like the ones he drew for MAD.

Olevai Shalom.

Later

[MFS62]

Rick Wolff - host of WFAN's Sports Page - 71

https://www.audacy.com/wfan/sports/rick ... UZigBmNKJY

Later

[Frayed Knot]

His father Bob, who had a lengthy career in sports also, only died a few years back (2017).

[Marshmallowmilkshake]

Harry Belafonte, the barrier-breaking singer, actor and activist, has died at 96, per the New York Times.

[MFS62]

Harry Belafonte, the barrier-breaking singer, actor and activist, has died at 96, per the New York Times.

The story:
https://variety.com/2023/music/news/har ... 235593910/
RIP

Later

[G-Fafif]

From NYT…

Harry Belafonte, who stormed the pop charts and smashed racial barriers in the 1950s with his highly personal brand of folk music, and who went on to become a major force in the civil rights movement, died on Tuesday at his home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He was 96.

The cause was congestive heart failure, said Ken Sunshine, his longtime spokesman.

At a time when segregation was still widespread and Black faces were still a rarity on screens large and small, Mr. Belafonte’s ascent to the upper echelon of show business was historic. He was not the first Black entertainer to transcend racial boundaries; Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and others had achieved stardom before him. But none had made as much of a splash as he did, and for a few years no one in music, Black or white, was bigger.

Born in Harlem to West Indian immigrants, he almost single-handedly ignited a craze for Caribbean music with hit records like “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” and “Jamaica Farewell.” His album “Calypso,” which contained both those songs, reached the top of the Billboard album chart shortly after its release in 1956 and stayed there for 31 weeks. Coming just before the breakthrough of Elvis Presley, it was said to be the first album by a single artist to sell more than a million copies.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

My Mom used to play Calypso all day long, or so I remembered it

[kcmets]

My Mom loved him too! RIP

[Frayed Knot]

Yeah, it was on Sunday afternoons for some reason, after returning from church, when the 'rents would break out the Harry Belafonte albums.

[Edgy MD]

There was 10 minutes in there before the ascension of Sidney Poitier that the industry was positioning him to be Hollywood's one black leading man, but after his successful turn in Island in the Sun in 1957, he saw Poitier's star rising faster and he mostly did niche work as an actor after that.

It's tough trick to have such a sharp, grave mind, hoping to be taken seriously, after becoming famous singing such a fun, goofy genre of music. But man, the guy could sure wear a pair of pants.

[Marshmallowmilkshake]

My mother-in-law passed away tonight. She was such a special person. Mom always treated me like a son instead of a son-in-law. Spoiled me. She planned these elaborate vacations for the extended family and always made sure there were side trips involving baseball and presidents. I’m sure some of the family members were, like, “Why are we at the Bob Feller Museum” or “The Herbert Hoover Museum? Really?” But they knew why.

We moved her from Illinois to Michigan seven years ago after Dad passed and she started having some health challenges. I loved having her nearby.

She grew up on an Iowa farm in the tail end of the Depression in a house without running water. She supported my father-in-law as he worked through veterinary school and raised three children. When the kids were older she joined the workforce and became the executive assistant to the University of Illinois dean of Engineering, a big job.

She loved Illini sports and professional bull riding, and I’d always get us good seats when the PBR tour came to my city. She knew all about the bulls and riders and how to keep score. It was to sit with her and watch her enjoy it.

Mom’s health has been declining in recent years, and more so since January. She entered hospice care about six weeks ago. There were good days and rough days. We treasured the good ones because we knew there would not be many more of them.

She was the last of her generation on both sides of the family. Very strong in her faith. A coworker told me, “She has a lot of people waiting for her.” That seemed nice.

She welcomed me into the family warmly and lovingly. I don’t think I ever asked permission to call her “Mom,” but it just felt right.

I loved her very much.

[kcmets]

Condolences MarshMichInMallowGuy.