Sad News: Gary Moore passes away

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This news, as untimely as it is, comes as a great shock.

As reported in The Irish Times:

Former Thin Lizzy guitarist Gary Moore has died at a Costa del Sol hotel.

The musician was found dead in his room at the luxury Kempinski Resort Hotel in Estepona in the early hours of this morning. A postmortem is due to carried out later today in the nearby city of Malaga.

Moore (58) from Belfast is understood to have been on holiday at the time of his death.

More at: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/0206/breaking25.html

I know that Moore was happy to have put his rock years behind him and to have reinvented himself as a blues guitarist, but I'll always have a soft spot for his "Back On The Streets" album. I also loved his work with Thin Lizzy on the "Black Rose" album.

Very sad.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Charles H. Kaman, inventor of the Ovation Guitar dies at age 91

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Charles H. Kaman - aviation pioneer in the development of helicopters and the creator of the Ovation Roundback guitar - has died in Connecticut USA [on Monday January 31].

In the 1940s he split off from Sikorsky Aviation to found his own corporation to design and manufacture helicopter blades. Using the knowledge he had regarding the control of vibrations, he set out in the mid-1960s to create a new type of guitar: using a strong molded one-piece parabolic assembly of sides and back made out of the same fiberglass compound he used on his blades. In-store demonstrations of the earliest Ovation guitars were a sight to behold: the sales rep would put the guitar face-down on the floor and stand on the bowl assembly.

Kaman (sounds like "command") was among the first to use alternative synthetic materials on guitars, paving the way for Steinberger and others. Kaman was 91.

Via Alan Peterson

(See also the New York Times obituary)

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Mick Karn, RIP

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This is sad news. The world has lost one of the most innovative musicians ever, a guy who couldn't read music, claimed to know nothing of musical theory, and yet his playing was fluid and innovative.

Mick Karn, most famously was bassist with 1980s glam/art rock band Japan, lost his battle against cancer yesterday (4 January 2011). His fretless bass playing was so unique in style, so very distinctive that you couldn't mistake it for anyone else.

My favourite of his recordings was "The Waking Hour" by Dalis Car (Mick Karn with vocalist Peter Murphy from Bauhaus and drummer Paul Vincent Lawford) which contains some stunning compositions from Karn plus some phenomenal fretless bass. However, the clip I am showing below is taken from BBC 2's "Old Grey Whistle Test" from when there was a Musician's Union strike (which is a disasterous situation for a music show) and no live music was allowed. Bending the rules slightly, the programme had Angie Bowie reading one of her poems accompanied by Karn improvising on fretless bass (a section of his bassline here would later be used in one of his Dalis Car compositions).

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Captain Beefheart RIP

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This is sad news indeed...

Don Van Vliet, aka 'Captain Beefheart', has died aged 69 from complications from multiple sclerosis.

(I know it's not necessarily directly guitar-related, but look out for the Melobar in the above clip.)

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Tony Peluso, RIP

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Sad news. Tony Peluso has died aged 60 of heart disease. He'll probably be best remembered for that classic solo and outro in The Carpenters' "Goodbye To Love" (above).

Carpenters lead guitarist Tony Peluso dies (Yahoo News)

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Les Paul - Guitarist Extraordinaire

I've only just heard about this, but I'm sure you've all heard about Les Paul's passing by now. This kind of sad news has an uncanny knack of happening whenever I go away for a few days leaving the blog untended.

G L Wilson

Kelly Groucutt, RIP

Kelly Groucutt, best known as bassist and sometime singer for the legendary Electric Light Orchestra, died last Thursday, 19 June, of a heart attack aged 63. (See BBC News story here).

John Martyn dies, aged 60

I feel absolutely depressed as I report here on this blog that one of my all-time favourite guitarists, John Martyn, has passed away this morning. I only came to his music in recent years, which is quite late on I have to admit, but once I'd had a taste I just wanted more and more.

I always liked the way you couldn't pigeonhole him. He mixed up folk, jazz, rock, blues, reggae... everything was an influence. His guitar playing was stupendous - he pioneered the use of playing with echo effects - something that players these days can do with digital looping pedals, but back in the day Martyn had to make do with cumbersome tape-echo machines such as the EchoPlex. His voice too was as distinctive as his guitar playing. His slurred vocals had an almost baritone saxophone quality to them and in a way his voice was like another instrument in the mix.

I was lucky enough to see him perform last November in Oxford on his "Grace and Danger" tour. It was a very entertaining concert and one that I will always remember, but it seemed to us watching that he wasn't a very well man - he seemed tired and even gave up playing his guitar towards the end of the gig.

The only consolation I feel right now is that we'll always have his music.

• BBC news report
  
• Obituary
  
• www.johnmartyn.com

Ron Asheton, RIP

Very sad news. Ron Asheton, the legendary guitarist of The Stooges has been found dead at his home.

Full story here.

Folk legend Davy Graham dies aged 68

I've only just heard the sad news. The infamous and highly innovative folk guitarist Davy Graham passed away on Monday. Graham was the guy who inspired many other folk greats such as John Martyn and Bert Jansch. He took influences from Arabic and Indian music and experimented with various alternate guitar tunings, and reportedly it was he that developed the popular DADGAD tuning.

I remember seeing a gig of his in Oxford about 20 years ago, and let's just say it was a very eccentric performance with lots of tuning and re-tuning of his guitar inbetween the songs.

Will Hodgkinson writes about Davy Graham at quite some length in his hugely entertaining Guitar Man book. It seems he was quite a character!

The Guardian's Music Blog has a video tribute page here.

I'm now going to give his final album, "Broken Biscuits", another spin in his memory.

Country Music's "Guitar Man" Jerry Reed dies at age 71

The Grammy award-winning session and tour guitarist Jerry Reed has died at the age of 71. As well as playing with Chet Atkins, Joan Baez and Ringo Starr, writing songs for Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley and Brenda Lee, Jerry Reed also found time to be an actor, and famously appeared alongside Burt Reynolds as The Snowman in the Smokey and the Bandit movies.

Mel Galley, RIP

The former Whitesnake guitarist Mel Galley has died from cancer of the esophagus, aged 60.

On discovering he had only weeks to live in February, he told The Daily Telegraph, "It happens, but I've had a fantastic life. I have been very lucky. I have seen some great bands, and played with many great musicians. I am thankful that I can say a proper goodbye to all the friends I have made, who are now rallying round me."

See full story here.

Let's all say a sad farewell to the dude with the square guitar

Musician Bo Diddley dies aged 79 (BBC News).

www.bo-diddley.com

Guitarist Jeff Healey Dies At 41: very sad news.

US soul musician Ike Turner dies

R.I.P.

Paul Raven, bassist with post-punk band Killing Joke, has died of a suspected heart attack aged 46.

In another sad loss to the world of alternative and punk music, Paul Fox, guitarist of The Ruts has also passed away.

RIP to the both of them.

Outlaws' Guitarist Dies at 55: Hughie Thomasson, a founding member of the legendary Southern Rock band The Outlaws, passed away at his home in Brooksville, Florida late Sunday evening. Thomasson, 55, died of a heart attack in his sleep.

Girlschool Guitarist Dies: KELLY JOHNSON has died following a six-year battle with cancer. The British guitarist passed away from complications caused by cancer of the spine on Sunday (15Jul07).

Former Marshall Tucker Band guitarist George McCorkle dies

Blues guitarist dies in Cleveland: Robert Lockwood Jr, RIP.