William “Billy” Bryans passed away on April 23. He was 62. Billy played drums for many bands including Raffi and the Downchild Blues Band. He is best know as one of the founders of the Parachute Club. He was widely known as a producer, making records with the above artists and Lillian Allen. He was also a promoter and an accomplished songwriter.
Another part of music history has passed on. Chris Ethridge, bass player, passed away on April 23. He was 65. He was suffering with pancreatic cancer Check out this list of players and bands he worked with, but first, note that he was the bassist for The Flying Burrito Brothers with Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman. These guys pretty much created the country-rock genre of music. Chris wrote several songs with the band.
The List
Judy Collins, Leon Russell, Johnny Winter, Randy Newman, Ry Cooder, Linda Ronstadt, The Byrds, Jackson Browne, Willie Nelson, Paul Kantner, The Doors and the list goes on.
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The Song Of The Day will dedicate this post to Tommy Marth, saxophonist extraordinaire. Tommy died of his own hand on April 23. He was 33. His work is most often associated “The Killers” who he played with during 2008 and 2009. He also appeared on their albums, “Sam’s Town” and “Day & Age“. This is a live version of Joy Ride.
Song of the Day dedicates this post to Joe Muranyi. He passed away on April 20 at the age of 84. Joe was a jazz player, who specialized in the clarinet and was also a vocalist. His career was highlighted by a stint (1967-71) with the Louis Armstrong All-Stars, where he played clarinet. He was also a producer, a critic and created liner notes for many albums. The attached song is from 2008.
For those of you who know my blog, I do tributes to recently departed musicians. As of this posting, I will be integrating these tributes into the Song Of The Day format that I have been using. This should reduce some of my spamming in your in-boxes.
As most of you now know, one of the original members of Men At Work, Greg Ham, passed away on April 19. Exceptionally talented, he played saxophone, flute, organ, synthesizer and piano. He also contributed with his songwriting skills to the success of 80’s favorite, Men At Work. One of their most enduring songs is “Who Can It Be Now“, which featured Greg Ham on saxophone.
Jazz vibraphonist, Teddy Charles passed away on April 16. He was 84. Dion, Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Miles Davis are some of the people he played and recorded with in his career. His main period of creating was the 1950’s. In his later years, he was captain of a Caribbean charter vessel, and had returned to music over the last few years, releasing an album as recently as 2009. I have attached two videos here, the first is off a 1956 album, the second is an interview done in relation to his 2009 release.
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