{"id":1906,"date":"2016-12-16T09:38:23","date_gmt":"2016-12-16T15:38:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/?p=1906"},"modified":"2016-12-16T09:42:29","modified_gmt":"2016-12-16T15:42:29","slug":"it-indeed-has-been-a-bad-year-for-rock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/it-indeed-has-been-a-bad-year-for-rock\/","title":{"rendered":"It Indeed Has Been A Bad Year For Rock and Roll"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u201cIt\u2019s been a bad year for rock and roll.\u201d
\n\u2014\tChuck Prophet<\/em><\/p>\n

Singer-songwriter Chuck Prophet, a regular on my Spotify playlist was bemoaning the deaths of David Bowie and Prince, among many others, when he released that song earlier this year. He is right.
\n Bowie died of cancer two months after releasing \u201cBlack Star\u201d in January. Check out the video of \u201cLazarus\u201d on YouTube. It is the haunting work of a brilliant artist who knows he will die soon.
\nPrince, one of the finest guitar players on the planet, died far too young of an opioid overdose at 57. One of his greatest performances was at the induction of the late George Harrison into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. You can find a video of that on YouTube as well. <\/p>\n

I Googled \u201cRock Stars Who Died in 2016.\u201d It is what we do these days. No question is allowed to go unanswered. No matter how arcane the topic, somebody is going whip out a smart phone and find the answer. There is an entire generation of young people under, say, 19, who believe this is the way life has always been. When told differently, they generally shudder in disbelief. How could one live like that? The trick, of course, is finding reliable sources. Clearly, judging from the spate of fake news making headlines and fools out of the gullible, a dispiritingly large portion of Americans cannot tell the difference. But I digress.<\/p>\n

Among the other fine musicians who passed away this year:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Guy Clark, a fine singer and writer, who wrote \u201cLA Freeway,\u201d \u201cDesperadoes Waiting for a Train,\u201d and \u201cHomegrown Tomatoes.\u201d He and Townes Van Zandt were close friends and collaborators until Townes\u2019 death at 52 from a heart attack almost certainly linked to his heavy drinking.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Leon Russell, the white-haired keyboardist and singer, who made a modest comeback a few years back with a nice collaborative album with Elton John. <\/p>\n

\u2022 Two members of the 1970s rock group Emerson, Lake & Palmer died this year. Keith Emerson killed himself in March, apparently despondent over a medical condition. Greg Lake died earlier this month of cancer. In tribute, a lawyer at a board meeting I recently attended started singing, quite well, \u201cOh, what a lucky man he was,\u201d which is about a soldier dying in battle. That slice of song got us to talking about who else in the music world died this year \u2014 hence this piece.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Paul Kantner, co-founder of Jefferson Airplane, also died. I played \u201cWorst of Jefferson Airplane\u201d in high school incessantly. It is playing \u201cWhite Rabbit\u201d now on my computer speakers, thanks to Spotify. <\/p>\n

\u2022 Glenn Frey, co-founder of the Eagles, died last January. That superband, which included East Texan Don Henley, was formed as a backup band for singer Linda Ronstadt\u2019s 1971 tour. When the tour ended, the Eagles were born.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Merle Haggard, the craggy-faced country singer famed for \u201cOkie from Muskogee,\u201d had a voice that just captivated me. He died on his birthday in April at 79. My favorite Haggard song is \u201cThat\u2019s the Way Love Goes,\u201d but there are so many. Just last year, he teamed up with Henley on the latter\u2019s fine \u201cCass County\u201d album on a fine song called \u201cThat\u2019s the Cost of Living.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u2022 Sharon Jones died of pancreatic cancer last month at 60. Sharon Jones and her band, the Dap-Kings, rose out of obscurity with a reputation for high-energy live shows. I have watched a few on YouTube and regret not having seen her in person. <\/p>\n

This is not an exhaustive list, just the musicians dearest to me. The most crushing loss, for me, was Leonard Cohen, the brilliant songwriter who released his final album at 82, a month before his death. It contains some dark songs that in retrospect make one believe Cohen knew death was knocking on the door. \u201cYou Want It Darker\u201d contains the line, \u201cI\u2019m ready, my Lord.\u201d <\/p>\n

Cohen was interviewed by New Yorker<\/em> editor David Remnick in a piece published in October. He talked about how he kept going: \u201cNow it\u2019s a habit. And there\u2019s the element of time, which is powerful, with its incentive to finish up. Now I haven\u2019t gotten near finishing up. I\u2019ve finished up a few things. I don\u2019t know how many other things I\u2019ll be able to get to\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll miss these fine artists, but their music will long survive them. <\/p>\n

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Print this entry\u201cIt\u2019s been a bad year for rock and roll.\u201d \u2014 Chuck Prophet Singer-songwriter Chuck Prophet, a regular on my Spotify playlist was bemoaning the deaths of David Bowie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[51,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-51","category-columns"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1906"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1910,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906\/revisions\/1910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}