Guess who died in 2024

[Frayed Knot]

Cissy Houston - 91
Gospel singer, backup singer (listen to Paul Simon's 'Mother and Child Reunion'), Grammy winner for solo records, and, most famously, mother of Whitney.

[Frayed Knot]

Ethel Kennedy, Bobby's (Sr.) widow and the crazy one's mother -- 96

[MFS62]

Mitzi Gaynor - star of South Pacific - 93
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie ... lYhWZlGR2A

Later

[Batty31]

Iron Maiden’s original singer, Paul Di’Anno. 😔




https://blabbermouth.net/news/ex-iron-m ... dead-at-66

[cal sharpie]

The Grateful Dead's Phil Lesh, 84.

[Edgy MD]

In a parallel universe, Mitzi Gaynor, Paul Di'Anno, and Phil Lesh released two interesting albums as a super group called Los Diegos.

[Edgy MD]

Go out and bust some heads in honor of David Harris, who breathed life into the role of Cochise, part-shaman, part-mystic, part-consigliere, and always ready for action in The Warriors.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Salutes Cochise. Not as a big a bopper as Snowball but a bigger personality

[Edgy MD]

His eyes were always droopy and stoned-lookin' but in a night of bad decisions, he was probably the clearest thinker apart from Swan.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

He was as enthusiastic about the Lizzies as Vermin was.

What was Cowboy even doing in that gang

[MFS62]

Teri Garr - actress 79
https://apnews.com/article/teri-garr-di ... 8f34dfaf2d

Later

[Edgy MD]

A fun game is —when you come across an ensemble dancing scene from a sixties variety show, from an Elvis movie, or from a Beach Party film — to try and spot Teri Garr bringing the go-go. She was seemingly in all of them.

Even after getting regular work as a non-dancing actress in the seventies, she'd still show up for dancing gigs on Cher or Tony Orlando and Dawn or something.

[Frayed Knot]

Quincy Jones - 91

[MFS62]

American Democracy - 248

There may not be a
Later

[Frayed Knot]

NASCAR legend Bobby Allison - 86

His down-the-stretch bumper car routine with competitor Cale Yarborough as they raced for the checkered flag, and the subsequent on-track fist-fight,
during the Daytona 500, is the stuff of legends and widely credited to kick-starting the popularity of the sport outside its south-eastern base. But, even
besides that, he's also the fourth winningest driver in NASCAR history.

[Bob Alpacadaca]

Former Solicitor General Theodore Olson, who argued 65 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Olson also argued the Bush campaign’s case before the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore, which effectively found the 2000 election for George W. Bush when it ruled that the different standards used in a Florida recount violated the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. Across his career he was a strong advocate for gay rights, and in 2013 he argued Hollingsworth v. Perry, which successfully made the case for same-sex marriage.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/ted-olson-d ... 4#cxrecs_s

[ashie62]

Shel Tammy 87

Legendary music producer, Who and Kinks for starters

[MFS62]

Original host of Wheel of Fortune - Chuck Woolery - 83
https://www.tmz.com/2024/11/23/chuck-wo ... RcjVVVBzFw

Later

[Chad ochoseis]

Alice Brock, the Alice of "Alice's Restaurant", 83.

https://apnews.com/article/alice-brock- ... 14410dccef

[metirish]

[Edgy MD]

An amazing life. The man didn't seem to have a whole lot of time-outs left in 1984, let alone enough to last him 40 more years.

Sort of like a college basketball Davey Johnson in that he was a beloved and colorful part of a wonderful New York team in the mid-eighties, but as endering as he was, everybody seemed to think that they could coach that team better.

[G-Fafif]

The Amazing Kreskin, 89.

[Frayed Knot]

Sportscaster Greg Gumbel - 78

[MFS62]

Greg was one of the first on- air voices of WFAN, and I was his second caller. We talked about the Cleveland Indians' pitching staff. I knew he would talk about it because I had read that he was from Cleveland. He was the brother of fellow sports (and other) announcer Bryant Gumbel, and Greg was the nice one.

RIP

https://nypost.com/2024/12/27/sports/gr ... m3q0jW4vKQ
Later

[Frayed Knot]

Greg and Bryant Gumbel may have been Cleveland Indian fans but they were New Orleans born and did most of their growing up in Chicago.


WFAN's focus, when they first kicked off the concept of an all-sports radio station and were essentially making stuff up on the fly, was to hire nationally known talent behind the mics as opposed to lesser known local voices. In that attempt, Greg Gumbel was their choice as the morning drive-time host.
... it didn't work very well.

Turns out NYC fans didn't want out of towners talking about their teams. Long time acerbic talk show host from Cleveland, Pete Franklin, was hired as the afternoon drive-time host and that didn't work out any better than Gumbel (the heart attack Franklin had between his hiring and the launching of the station didn't help any either) which is bad seeing as how afternoon drive time and (especially) morning drive time are a radio station's biggest money makers.

So when FAN, looking to upgrade its signal strength from their initial frequency of 1050 AM on the dial, took over control of 660 AM from WNBC it also acquired the WNBC contract of one Don Imus and that signaled the end of the Gumbel experiment. Imus (in the morning) and, eventually, local voices the rest of the day, such as Syosset's Chris Russo and Long Beach's Mike Francesa, is what put the station on the road to not only solvency but fame and fortune.