Manchester-born DJ Dave Booth died on Saturday – at time of writing there’s been no announcement regarding cause of death, although it appears to be sudden. Dave was 61.
Following the recent passing of Manu Dibango and Bill Withers, another black music icon, Hamilton Bohannon, died last Friday aged 78 – the cause of death, at time of writing, still unknown.
We’ve lost another great. Virginia-born Soul singer / songwriter Bill Withers died in Los Angeles on March 30th as a result of heart complications. He was 81.
COVID-19 claimed the life of the pioneering Cameroonian musician Manu Dibango earlier this week. He died in Paris where he had been based for many years, moving there in the mid-‘60s – he was 86.
As with House music supremo Frankie Knuckles in 2014, the unexpected death of Andrew Weatherall, apart from being a huge shock to all within the club / music community, represents a sudden juncture where a now older generation, once so vital with ideas and innovation, ponders its own mortality, the passage of time underlined with the passing of one of its heroes – a true UK great whose place, as both DJ and pioneering remixer, is assured in the history books, key to the understanding of dance culture and its evolution. So, this was especially sobering news to hear on Monday, social media awash with a genuine outpouring of loss.
DJ Les Adams, regarded as one of the UK’s mixing pioneers, died suddenly last Monday of a heart attack – he was 63.
John Grant, one of the UK’s leading black music DJs of the late-‘70s / early-’80s died last month – he was 71. Apart from his family and close friends, his passing went largely unnoticed – his legacy somewhat forgotten. This is because he retired from DJing in 1981, right at what was seemingly the peak of his powers, completely disappearing from sight as he moved to the South coast, as the legend at the time was told, to become a lighthouse keeper, or, in another version, a harbour master (the truth seems to be that he moved to Peacehaven to work for a Hovercraft company).
Singer / songwriter / record producer, Scott Walker, real name Noel Scott Engel, died on March 22nd, aged 76. Although born in Ohio, USA in 1943, he became a British citizen in 1970. His unique enigmatic career would span ‘60s Pop through to the Avant-Garde direction of his later recordings. In 2006 a documentary film about Walker, ’30 Century Man’, captured this extraordinary artistic journey.
Following a long struggle with cancer, which was first diagnosed back in 2011, returning after a period of remission earlier this year, legendary London DJ Paul ‘Trouble’ Anderson died last Sunday, aged 59.
Such tragic news to hear that Navid Izadi died earlier this month, aged just 32, when the Cessna light aircraft he was a passenger on crashed in a parking lot in Santa Ana, California, killing him, along with his mother and 3 others onboard.
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