James William Buffett (December 25, 1946 – September 1, 2023)
Jimmy Buffett was an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and businessman. He was best known for his music, which often portrays an “island escapism” lifestyle. Together with his Coral Reefer Band, Buffett recorded hit songs including “Margaritaville” (ranked 234th on the Recording Industry Association of America’s list of “Songs of the Century”) and “Come Monday”. He had a devoted base of fans known as “Parrotheads”.
Aside from his career in music, Buffett was also a bestselling author and was involved in two restaurant chains named after two of his best-known songs; he owned the Margaritaville Cafe restaurant chain and co-developed the now defunct Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurant chain.
Buffett was one of the world’s richest musicians, with a net worth of $1 billion by 2023.
Buffett died from lymphoma on September 1, 2023, at the age of 76. The singer’s death was announced on his social media pages and on his website. In a statement released by the family, they said “Jimmy passed away peacefully on the night of September 1st surrounded by his family, friends, music and dogs. He lived his life like a song till the very last breath and will be missed beyond measure by so many.”
Robert William Barker was an American television game show host. He hosted CBS’s The Price Is Right from 1972 to 2007, making it the longest-running daytime game show in North American television history. He also hosted Truth or Consequences from 1956 to 1975.
Posted onJune 2, 2023byJames|Comments Off on RIP Sled Driver Brian Shul
Brian Shul (February 8, 1948 – May 20, 2023)
Sled driver you ask. That’s what they called the pilots of the world’s faster airplane, the Lockheed SR-71 ‘Blackbird’.
Brian Shul in front of the SR-71 ‘Blackbird’
Brian Shul was an American pilot and photographer. A Vietnam War-era attack pilot and a Major in the United States Air Force (USAF), he flew 212 combat missions and was shot down near the end of the war. He was so badly burned that he was given next to no chance to live. Surviving, he returned to full flight status, flying the SR-71 Blackbird. Major Shul completed a 20-year career in the Air Force. He wrote four books on aviation and ran a photo studio in Marysville, California, until his death in Reno, Nevada.
Posted onMay 1, 2023byJames|Comments Off on RIP Gordon Lightfoot
Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr.CCOOnt (November 17, 1938 – May 1, 2023)
Gordon Lightfoot was a Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist who achieved international success in folk, folk-rock, and country music. He is credited with helping to define the folk-pop sound of the 1960s and 1970s. He has been referred to as Canada’s greatest songwriter and was known internationally as a folk-rock legend. Lightfoot’s biographer Nicholas Jennings said, “His name is synonymous with timeless songs about trains and shipwrecks, rivers and highways, lovers and loneliness.”
Lightfoot’s songs, including “For Lovin’ Me”, “Early Morning Rain”, “Steel Rail Blues”, “Ribbon of Darkness”—a number one hit on the U.S. country chart with Marty Robbins’s cover in 1965—and “Black Day in July”, about the 1967 Detroit riot, brought him wide recognition in the 1960s. Canadian chart success with his own recordings began in 1962 with the No. 3 hit “(Remember Me) I’m the One”, followed by recognition and charting abroad in the 1970s. He topped the US Hot 100 or AC chart with the hits “If You Could Read My Mind” (1970), “Sundown” (1974); “Carefree Highway” (1974), “Rainy Day People” (1975), and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” (1976), and had many other hits that appeared in the top 40.
Several of Lightfoot’s albums achieved gold and multi-platinum status internationally. His songs have been recorded by artists such as Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams Jr., Jerry Lee Lewis, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Harry Belafonte, the Grateful Dead, Olivia Newton-John,and Jim Croce. The Guess Who recorded a song called “Lightfoot” on their 1968 album Wheatfield Soul; the lyrics contain many Lightfoot song titles.
David Van Cortlandt Crosby was an American singer, guitarist, and songwriter. In addition to his solo career, he was a founding member of both the Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash.
Crosby joined the Byrds in 1964. They had their first number-one hit in April 1965 with a cover of “Mr. Tambourine Man” by Bob Dylan. Crosby appeared on the Byrds’ first five albums and produced the original lineup’s 1973 reunion album. He subsequently formed Crosby, Stills & Nash in 1968 with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash.
Christine McVie (July 12, 1943 – November 30, 2022)
Christine Anne McVie (née Perfect) was an English musician, and the vocalist and keyboardist of Fleetwood Mac, which she joined in 1970. She also released three solo albums. Her lyrics focused on love and relationships. Steve Leggett of AllMusic described her as an “unabashedly easy-on-the-ears singer/songwriter, and the prime mover behind some of Fleetwood Mac’s biggest hits.” Eight songs written or co-written by her, including “Don’t Stop”, “Everywhere” and “Little Lies”, appeared on Fleetwood Mac’s 1988 Greatest Hits album.
Rest in Peace French-born American actor Robert Clary (March 1, 1926 – November 16, 2022), well known for his roles as Corporal Louis LeBeau on Hogan’s Heroes (1965–1971), Robert LeClair on Days of Our Lives (1972–1987), Pierre Roulland on The Young and the Restless (1973–1974), and Pierre Jourdan on The Bold and the Beautiful (1990–1992).
Posted onNovember 11, 2022byJames|Comments Off on RIP Gallagher – They oughta call ’em builts.
Gallagher (July 24, 1946 – November 11, 2022)
Leo Anthony Gallagher Jr., known mononymously as Gallagher, was an American comedian who became one of the most recognizable comedic performers of the 1980s for his prop and observational routine that included the signature act of smashing a watermelon on stage with a sledgehammer. For more than 30 years, he played between 100-200 shows a year, destroying tens of thousands of melons with the sledgehammer he called the “Sledge-O-Matic”. Gallagher’s 13 TV comedy specials is second most all-time, behind only George Carlin.
Sledge-O-Matic Though it varied from performance to performance, Gallagher would usually end each of his shows with his signature “Sledge-O-Matic” routine.
It traditionally began with the following preamble:
“Ladies and gentlemen! I did not come here tonight just to make you laugh. I came here to sell you something and I want you to pay particular attention!
The amazing Master Tool Corporation, a subsidiary of Fly-By-Night Industries, has entrusted who? Me! To show you! The handiest and the dandiest kitchen tool you’ve ever seen. And don’t you wanna know how it works!?
Well, first you get out an ordinary apple. You place the apple between the patented pans. Then you reach for the tool that is not a slicer, is not a dicer, is not chopper in a hopper! What in the hell could it possibly be?! The Sledge-O-Matic!”
Gallagher would then produce a large, usually wooden, mallet, roughly the size of a sledgehammer, and smash it down onto the apples, hurling chunks of produce into the audience. People in the first several rows were usually prepared with tarps and raincoats, and many comedy clubs took great measures to cover up and protect their interiors with tarps and plastic sheeting.
Dame Angela Lansbury (October 16, 1925 – October 11, 2022)
Angela Lansbury was an Irish-British-American actress and singer who played various roles across film, stage, and television. Her career, one of the longest in the entertainment industry, spanned eight decades, much of it in the United States; her work also received much international attention. She was one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema at the time of her death.
Loretta Lynn was an American singer-songwriter. In a career which spanned six decades in country music, Lynn released multiple gold albums. She had hits such as “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man)”, “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind)”, “One’s on the Way”, “Fist City”, and “Coal Miner’s Daughter”. In 1980, the film Coal Miner’s Daughter was made based on her life.
SAN ANTONIO, April 4, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — DeLorean Motor Company has announced a new reveal date and released its first sneak peak of their electric vehicle. The concept car is now slated to premiere Thursday, August 18 at the prestigious Awards Ramp at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.
Posted onApril 2, 2022byJames|Comments Off on C.W. McCall is on the side. He’s gone bye bye.
C.W. McCall, the Omaha, Nebraska adman who jumped to country music stardom with 1976’s “Convoy“, died yesterday at the age of 93 after battling cancer.
C.W. McCall (born William Dale Fries Jr., Nov. 15, 1928 – April 1, 2022)
“Breaker one-nine, this here’s the Rubber Duck” introduced America to CB Jargon in the mainstream. Selling more than 2 million copies, and inspiring a 1978 movie of the same name starring Kris Kristofferson, would bring “10-4, good buddy” and many more into America’s lexicon.
Born Nov. 15, 1928, in Audubon, Iowa, as William Dale Fries Jr., Fries created the character of C.W. McCall in 1974 while working at an Omaha ad agency. The goal then wasn’t to record radio hits but to sell loaves of bread with country-sounding jingles.
“I wanted to name the truck driver something that would be easily remembered. A lot of the truckers wore initials on their shirts,” he told Milwaukee deejay Bob Barry. “We thought it was sort of a country-western sounding track, so that’s where the C.W. came from.”
The first commercial, “Old Home Filler-Up an’ Keep on a-Truckin’ Café,” proved so popular (it won a Clio Award) that Fries began to write a series of truck-driving songs with Chip Davis, who’d go on to form the neo-classical group Mannheim Steamroller. “Old Home Filler-Up an’ Keep on a-Truckin’ Café” appeared on McCall’s debut album, 1975’s Wolf Creek Pass. The title track hit Number 12 on the country charts and Fries — by now fully transformed into the character of C.W. McCall — set about recording the follow-up.
Black Bear Road arrived in September 1975 and its title track stalled at Number 24. But McCall released another song off the album: “Convoy.” The tale of a caravan of big-rig drivers led by “The Rubber Duck” caught the national consciousness with its vivid cross-country imagery and playful lingo — “Smokies” for the cops, “bear in the air” for a police chopper, “What’s your twenty?” for location, and, of course, “10-4” for “affirmative.” The track spent six weeks atop the country charts and hit No. 1 on the pop survey.
“This here’s the Rubber Duck on the side. We gone, ‘bye, ‘bye”
Howard Hesseman (February 27, 1940 – January 29, 2022)
He played DJ Dr. Johnny Fever on WKRP in Cincinnati, Captain Pete Lassard in Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment, Sam Royer on One Day at a Time, and schoolteacher Charlie Moore on Head of the Class. Hesseman made his television debut with two small guest roles on the final season of The Andy Griffith Show in 1968. That same year he appeared in five episodes of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Over the course of his career, Hesseman had small guest appearances in several beloved shows, including That 70s Show, ER and Boston Legal, among several others. His last credited TV role came in 2017, where he appeared in two episodes of the ABC comedy Fresh Off The Boat. Hesseman received Emmy nominations in 1980 and ’81 for his work on CBS’ WKRP in Cincinnati, which ran for four seasons (1978-82). With his shades, moustache and slouch, he became a countercultural icon. Hesseman also reprised his role as “Dr. Johnny Fever” in 10 episodes of the two-season reboot The New WKRP in Cincinnati (from 1991 to 1993). Hessman died from complications of colon surgery in Los Angeles, California, on January 29, 2022, at the age of 81.
Betty Marion White Ludden (January 17, 1922 – December 31, 2021) was a beloved American actress and comedian. With over 8 decades in “the business” she has done it all.
A scene from the final episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (from left): White, Gavin MacLeod, Ed Asner, Georgia Engel, Ted Knight, and Mary Tyler Moore
Cast photo from The Betty White Show of 1977. From left-John Hillerman, Betty White, Georgia Engel.
Wendie Malick, Betty White, Jane Leeves and Valerie Bertinelli on the set of “Hot in Cleveland” in 2015
“The Raiders Family is deeply saddened by the passing of the legendary John Madden,” the Raiders said in a statement. “Few individuals meant as much to the growth and popularity of professional football as Coach Madden, whose impact on the game both on and off the field was immeasurable.” Jan 2, 2022
