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- [00:00]
Alan Cross
Hey, it's Alan. And I just wanted to let you know that you can now listen to the ongoing history of new music, early and ad free on Amazon Music included with Prime.
- [00:10]
Amazon Sponsor
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- [00:38]
Alan Cross
Oh, this is sad. But what are you gonna do? A couple years ago, it became obvious that we were entering an era when music fans were increasingly going to be sad every once in a while. And that's because our musical heroes are shuffling off this mortal coil. It hit really hard in 2016. That was a bad year with the deaths of David Bowie and Prince and a bunch of others. And that really brought home the unfortunate reality that we will continue to lose people who have been making music for us for years, maybe decades, maybe our entire lives. We didn't necessarily know any of these people personally, but it was through their music that we learned something about ourselves. So when they die, a little bit of us might go with them. I think it's important that we remember those musicians who have passed on, and that's why we have this annual look at who died. We need to honor their work and remember these musicians and music people. And with so many of them going, we need to remember that they did indeed pass away on our watch. This is the 2024 In Memoriam Show. Grab yourself a box of tissues, you might need it. This is the ongoing History of New Music podcast with Alan CR welcome again to the saddest ongoing history show of the year. It's when we salute those music people who have shuffled off this mortal coil. Like I said over the previous 12 months, while their music will continue to live on, they will not. And their passing needs to be remembered. Dozens left us in 2024, so we don't have time to go through everyone. But I have assembled a list of about 20 notable deaths over the past 12 months. First up is Del Palmer. If you know anything about Kate Bush, you'll know the name. Dell went through a bunch of bands in the late 60s and early 1970s, and then in 1977, he became part of the KT Bush Band. Kate Bush was all of 11 years old at the time, so Del was one of the adults in the room, guiding her through gigs at pubs. When Kate was ready to go solo, Del was there as her bass player. Later he'd work as a studio engineer for several of her albums and also appeared in a couple of her videos. We also see him on the COVID of Kate's fourth album, the Dreaming, but only the side of his head. He's the army officer whose head Kate holds in her hands, apparently about to dive in for a kiss. And yes, they were romantically linked in real life for a long time. Dale Palmer was also a big part of this song, playing bass and programming those drums.
- [03:18]
Del Palmer
Small places. They're running up that road they're running up that hill they're running up that building.
- [03:28]
Alan Cross
Kate Bush, featuring her longtime bass player, programmer and engineer, Del Palmer. He died at the age of 71 on January 5, 2024. We never did learn the cause of his death. Wayne Kramer also left us this year. He was one of the co founders of Detroit's MC5, one of the most important pre punk bands. Their three original albums never sold a lot of records, but they were tremendously influential with their sound and attitude in politics. You know what the Clash was to us in 1979, or you know what Rage against the Machine is to us today? That was the MC5 back in 1969. Kramer was the band's lead guitarist. They toured a lot, but they were always being hassled by law enforcement for their radical political views. Their manager, John Sinclair, was a member of the White Panthers. They lost him in 1969 when he was sentenced to almost 10 years for giving two joints to an undercover female police officer. The MC5 was done by 1972 and Kramer became a petty criminal. A drug conviction in 1975 sent him to prison for four years. When he got out, he went back to playing guitar in between working as a carpenter and woodworker. Younger bands acknowledged his influence. The Clash name check him in a song called Jail Guitar Doors. He appeared on stage with Rage against the Machine and Coheed in Cambria. He also worked with the Prisoners Charity alongside Tom Morello, Billy Bragg, Perry Farrell and Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains. Other gigs featured Wayne playing with members of Soundgarden, Faith no More and Fugazi. There was even an appearance on an Alice Cooper record. He also produced records for other people and provided music for film. You know, the Will Ferrell comedy, Talladega, the Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Wayne Kramer. In fact, Farrell was such a fan that he used Wayne for a number of his film projects. Wayne Kramer's last album was an MC5 record released after he died. That was 53 years after the group's debut. And speaking of which, this is the song that made Wayne and the MC5 Immortal.
- [05:43]
Del Palmer
Let me kick out the Jam. Yeah, kick out the Jam.
- [05:53]
Alan Cross
The MC5 and Kick out the Jams from 1969, featuring guitarist Wayne Kramer. He died on February 2, 2004, of pancreatic cancer. One of the most fun I've ever had in an interview was when I talked to Mojo Nixon. It was 1987, and he and his partner Skid Roper had just released an album called Bodacious. It basically poked fun at redneck culture with this rockabilly sound, but in no way was it mean or condescending. The day I spoke to him, David Bowie was also playing in town, and I asked him why anyone should go see him in a club instead of Bowie in a stadium. He picked up his guitar and improvised a song on the spot on live radio, and it was brilliant. I just wish I had audio of that. We'll come back to that album in a second. Mojo stayed in the entertainment business his whole life, even dipping into acting for a while. He supported Democratic candidates and was a big fan of file sharing. In the era when Metallica was suing fans, he worked as a radio DJ in both San Diego and Cincinnati, as well as on satellite radio. And this could be my favorite bit of trivia about him. In 1998, Mojo Nixon was the honorary captain of the US Men's Luge Team for the Winter Olympics. Here's Mojo's big song. He and Skid Roper were all over the video channels with this one in 1987.
- [07:12]
Del Palmer
Elvis is everywhere Elvis is everything Elvis is everybody Elvis is still the king man, oh man what I want you to see Let the big keys inside.
- [07:26]
Alan Cross
Of you and me Mojo Nixon and his then musical partner Skid Roper. And Elvis is Everywhere. Mojo went out doing what he loved best, playing live. On February 7, he was working as one of the performers on the Outlaw Country Cruise, and he suffered a major cardiac event of some kind as the ship was docked in San Juan, Puerto rico. He was 66. Carl Wallinger was one of the great alt rock songwriters of the 80s and early 90s. He was Welsh and a member of the Waterboys during their golden period, but it was with the band World Party where I thought he really shined. Wallinger put that band together in 1986 as a vehicle for his songwriting. The debut album, entitled Private Revolution, featured some great alt rock songs that channeled influences of the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Beach Boys, the Stones, Prince, and Dan Morrison. And perhaps the best example, at least as far as I'm concerned, is this song.
- [08:26]
Del Palmer
Save Me, Save Me from Tomorrow.
- [08:41]
Alan Cross
Ship of Fools, one of several big singles by Carl Wallinger and World party from the 1987 album Private Revolution. If you don't know that record, I highly recommend that you give it a listen. There would be four more World Party albums, but in 2001, Carl Wallinger suffered a brain aneurysm and required emergency surgery. His recovery was mostly complete, but because of where the clot was, doctor had to remove tissue around his optic nerve and that cost him his peripheral vision on the right side of both eyes. He was off the road for five years, but was back touring in 2006. However, the end finally came on March 10, 2024, when Carl died of a stroke at his home. He was 66. We'll continue with our 2024 memorial in just a second. And that includes a power pop pioneer and a member of a legendary ska band. This is our annual countdown, if you can call it that. Of all the musicians and music people we lost over the last 12 months. And we're going in chronological order. Some people will remember Eric Carman as someone who had some soft rock radio hits in the 70s and 80s, including songs in movies like Footloose and Dirty Dancing. But before that, he was in a groundbreaking band of the power pop sound. They were called the Raspberries. Ask anyone about power pop and they will talk about the Raspberries. They were formed in Cleveland in 1970. What made them different was their mating of riffy guitars and pop melodies. Their best years were between 1972 and 1974 when they had a gold single with this song. Now listen very carefully to the punchiness of the mix. It used a prototype outboard device called a limiter. State of the art stuff in 1972, and that gave everything an extra oomph of power. Eric Carmen and the Raspberries from the summer of 1972 with Go all the Way. That was a global hit for them and one of the first examples of what we would later call power pop in the world of alt rock. Eric continued to record and play live until the end of the 2010s. There were also sporadic reunions of the Raspberries. But the end came for Eric on March 11, 2024, and the cause of his death was never made public. The very next day, March 12, 2024, we lost Rusty Wilson, one of the co founders of Canada's Junk House. He was an ex bar bouncer who was recruited by Tom Wilson to be Junk House's bass player. He was 62 when he was claimed by meningitis. Five days after that, Steve Harley died. He was a singer songwriter, best known to British music fans as the frontman for the band Cockney Rebel. He died on March 17 at the age of 73, which is a lot older than most people expected. He contracted polio back in the 1950s at the age of 2, and doctors told his parents that he would not live. In the end, he would die of cancer. On April 1, Michael Ward died of complications from diabetes. He had been a member of the Wallflowers with Jacob Dylan and also a guitarist with School of Fish, a band, in my opinion, criminally underrated, who had one hit with a song called Three Strange Days. Great guitar hook in that song. And on April 30th, Duane Eddy died. He was a guitar rock pioneer for the 1950s, with a twangy sound that underpinned the rising surf rock sound. He was a big influence on George Harrison and Bruce Springsteen. When he died of cancer at age 86, he was the last surviving musician to have had a top 10 hit on the first ever Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 1958. And then there was Steve Albini. Steve was a guitarist in a variety of Chicago bands, Big Black Rape man and a few others. But he was best known as, well, I don't know if there's really a term for what he did. He did not produce records for other artists. His philosophy was to capture the essence of an artist's sound in the studio. So, yes, he was a recording engineer more than anything else, but his knowledge and approach somehow made him much more than that. He preferred analog technology, he avoided overdubbing where possible, and he kept outboard effects to the bare minimum. And the results were raw, authentic recordings. Albini worked with the Pixies on their brilliant Surfer rosa album in 1988. He helped the breeders find their sound on their POD album in 1990. He's uncredited with fellow Chicagoans Urge Overkill on Supersonic Storybook. He was with PJ Harvey on her Rid of Me album, another great record. But if there's one album he'll be remembered for, it's Nirvana's follow up to Nevermind. Steve Albini was a very big part of the sound of In Utilo, Nirvana and Heart Shaped Box from Ian Utero, which was, I don't know, produced, engineered, whatevered by Steve Albini. His other clients included a long list of intense indie bands, but also Bush, Veruca Salt, Cheap Trick, the Sadies, Pez, the band that would become Billy Talent, the Stooges, Scott Weiland, Manic Street Preachers and Canada's Mets. The thing about Steve was that unlike other producers, he charged a flat rate once the album was done. He didn't take any more money from the band in terms of royalties. Like most producers, they take a back end or percentage. He could have made millions from just in utero, but all he really wanted was I think $100,000 and that's it. Steve died of a heart attack at his home on May 7 at the age of 61 and the last record he was part of was the excellent Kim Deal solo record Nobody Loves yous More, which was one of the very best alt rock albums of 2024. Finally, if you're ever in Chicago, the road where his studio Electrical Audio is now called Steve Albini Way back in the 1970s, Arthur Gaps Hendrickson was one of the many British kids in and around Coventry, England to discover Jamaican music through the many immigrants that had settled in the city. He found some like minded individuals and was a founding member of the Selector when he became one of the vocalists next to frontwoman Pauline Black. He was with the band during their initial rush of fame between 1979 and 1982. Here's the group from 1979 with On My Radio the Selector, featuring Arthur Gaps Hendrickson on vocals along with Pauline Black. He died at the age of 73 on June 11, 2024. We'll finish off our In Memoriam list for 2024 with some names from metal, the jam band world and the emo scene of the early 2000s. Let's finish up our list of musicians we lost in 2024. Shifty Shellshock died of a drug overdose at the age of 49 on June 24th. He was the frontman for the band Crazy Town. Shifty, his real name was Seth Brooks. Binzer had a long history of addiction issues and he often had his run ins with the law, mostly involving burglary, drugs, alcohol and domestic disturbances with whomever he was living with at the time. If you were a fan of Celebrity Rehab, he was on the show three times and he was never able to stay sober. Things got so bad at one point that he managed to get his band kicked off the Ozzfest tour for being too much of a drunk. Now think about that. How bad do things have to be for you and your band to be thrown off a tour headlined by Ozzy Osbourne because you're indulging too much. Seriously. His friend was DJ AM and he, along with Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker, were the only two survivors of a horrific private jet crash in 2008. But DJ AM ended up dying of an accidental drug overdose a little later. There was hope that DJ AM's death might shock Shifty into sobriety, but that never happened. In March 2012, he ended up in hospital in a coma. It was drugs. But then, 12 years later, June 24, 2024, he took a fatal overdose of fentanyl, coke and meth at his home in LA and died. This was Crazy Town's massive hit in 2001. It was based on a sample from a Red Hot Chili Pepper song called Pretty Little Diddy, which explains why all four members of the Chili's get a songwriting credit. It hit number one on a series of charts, including the Billboard Hot 100, and was also a top 10 hit in Canada, the UK and Australia. It sold over a million copies and was one of the first one hit wonders of the 2000s. Jack Russell died in 2024. He was the singer of the band Great White, the group that was involved in the horrible Station nightclub fire in February 2003 where 100 people, including Great White's guitar player, died. Some pyro went very wrong at the start of Great White set and some insulation went up in flames. It's an awful story and I dedicate an episode of my other podcast, Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry, to that tragedy. Jack eventually went back to playing live, although he had all kinds of health issues. In 2009, a fall in his bathroom resulted in two cracked vertebrae and a herniated disc. He battled painkiller addiction and alcoholism, and then on July 17, 2024, he announced that he was retiring from touring because he'd been diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia, which is a neurological disease similar to Parkinson's. It's the same thing that killed Casey Kasem and the same condition that prompted Robin Williams to take his own life. A month later, on August 7, he was dead from complications resulting from the disease. A week later, we heard about the death of Greg Kinn, another power pop guy who released almost 20 albums. He wrote six novels and a bunch of short stories. His golden era was in the early 1980s when the Greg Kin Band finally hit with a couple of songs that melded power pop with a little bit of new wave. It was enough for some gold singles and a chance to open for the Rolling Stones. Greg later transitioned into a job as a radio DJ in San Jose, California. And for fun, he bred rare praying mantises. The DJ gig lasted until 2018, when he announced his retirement. What we didn't know at the time was that he was suffering from Alzheimer's. It finally caught up to him on August 13, 2024. He was 75. Nell Smith died in a car crash on October 5th. She was a 17 year old who had collaborated with the Flaming Lips. The next day, Johnny Neal of the Allman Brothers Band died of a heart failure. He was 70. On October 21, Paul Dano, the original lead singer of Iron Maiden, passed away. He'd been in poor health for years and struggled to make ends meet. He kept performing in his bands, sitting in a wheelchair. The cause of his death was a tear in the sack around his heart, which caused everything to stop. He was 66. Grateful Dead fans got a big shock when founding member Phil Lesh died at the age of 84. He was there at the very beginning and was famous for playing a six string bass. Phil also had plenty of health challenges. In 1998, he needed a new liver because of a Hep C infection. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2006. In 2015, he needed surgery for bladder cancer. And then in 2019, he was scheduled for surgery for bad back. We don't know why he died on October 25, but it's safe to say that his body probably just gave out. We have to mention the great jazz musician and producer Quincy Jones. He was 91 when pancreatic cancer got him on November 3rd. Quincy, of course, was the producer for Michael Jackson's big albums. That very same day, Andy Leake of Dexie's Midnight Runners passed away from complications resulting from Parkinson's. On November 14th, Vic Flick died. You may not know the name, but he's the guy playing that twangy guitar on the legendary James Bond theme. He was 87. It was Alzheimer's. Tal Shammy produced early records for the Kinks and the who. He had a stroke and died at the age of 87 on November 13th. Will Cullen Hart played for the indie band Olivia Tremor Control. He died of a heart attack at the age of 53 on November 29. Slim Dunlap, a guitarist with Replacements, suffered a stroke and died on December 18th. He was 73. And Casey Chaos of the goth band Christian Death, died of unknown causes on December 21st. Oh 1. More Bob Breyer played drums for My Chemical Romance for years, starting with the band's second album, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge in 2004. He stayed with the band all the way until their breakup in 2013, and after that he became a real estate agent and devoted his time to dog rescue charities. My Chemical romance has a 2025 reunion tour planned stadiums, but Bob will not be with them. He was last seen alive on November 4, and he was found dead in his Tennessee home on Nov. 26, apparently having died two days earlier. That's what the coroner said anyway, and no cause of death was ever released. Here's Bob from My Chemical Romance with their big 2006 album the Black Beret. Before we go, I want to add a few more names to our list. Two guys who drum with the Bee Gees died within days of each other. Dennis Byron was with the group between 1974 and 1980. He passed away in Nashville on November 14, and then on November 18. Colin Peterson, the original drummer for the Bee Gees back in the 1960s, also died. Aston Barrett was a former bass player for Bob Marley and the Wailers. His nickname was Family man because he had 41 children. And the frontman for the Spanish metal band Lucifer's Hammer, a guy who went by the name of Hades, was apparently murdered at the age of 38. Like I said at the beginning, this In Memoriam program only contains a couple dozen of the musicians and music people that we lost over the last 12 months, and when we do this again in a year, there will be more people to remember. Not to be morbid about it, but time marches on. There are so many legendary performers in their 70s and 80s that it's just a matter of time before we'll have to live in a world without them. People we've known in a very special way for our entire lives. Like I said at the beginning, at least their music will live on. And there are more than a few cautionary tales in some of these passings. There are hundreds of ongoing history shows available on demand as podcasts, and yes, I did say hundreds. They're all free and you can download them wherever you get your podcasts. And while you're there, grab a few episodes of Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry. That's my Music meets True Crime podcast. Let me know what you think of that one. We can connect on most of the social media networks. I'm always updating my website with music news and information, which is ajournalofmusicalthings.com that comes with a free newsletter too that you should get. And you can always email me about anything anytime. I'm available through AllinalEncross CA Technical Productions by Rob johnston. Back soon with something less somber. I'm Alan cross.
- [25:22]
Gordon Ramsay
I'm Gordon Ramsay. And this isn't just another food channel. It's entertaining.
- [25:28]
Alan Cross
Bring it in. Inspiring.
- [25:30]
Gordon Ramsay
I like that it's in unique. We're pushing the boundaries. Flavor is my new favorite. F word.
- [25:40]
Alan Cross
Time for the flavor.
- [25:42]
Del Palmer
Wow.
- [25:43]
Gordon Ramsay
There's food, and then there's flavor. Flavor Network streaming on stack tv.