In Memoriam

Remembering the Artists Who Left Us in 2024

Is it ghoulish to maintain a list of singers, musicians and other music industry figures who have died in the past year?

I don’t think so. Pauseandplay.com’s yearlong R.I.P. tributes are typically the most-read posts on the site. I get emails from readers alerting me to an obscure artist who has passed away, and readers leave sad emojis when they hear that a near-to-their-heart artist is no longer with us. It’s their way of saying goodbye.

Music means that much to us.

2016, in particular, was gut-wrenching. We lost David Bowie, Prince, Glenn Frey, Maurice White, George Martin, Merle Haggard, Leonard Cohen, Leon Russell, and George Michael in a span of 12 months.

It never stops. Every year seems brutal. 2024 has been no exception:

Quincy Jones. Kris Kristofferson. Liam Payne. Melanie. Dickey Betts. Duane Eddy. Eric Carmen. John Mayall. Phil Lesh. Steve Albini. Toby Keith. Wayne Kramer. To name a few.

Here are some personal reflections:

Mary Weiss – lead singer of The Shangri-Las. She was a girl-group icon. “Leader of the Pack,” “Remember (Walking in the Sand),” “Give Him a Great Big Kiss.” But just listen to "Past, Present and Future," in which Weiss speaks over Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata." It’s chilling. I’ve never heard anything else like it.

Marlena Shaw – R&B singer best known for “California Soul.” It fascinates me how Gen Z knows this song. They’ve heard it in commercials and repeatedly on TikTok; I know this because my 23-year-old daughter says she loves the Ashford & Simpson-penned classic. It’s a shame it never charted in the U.S. or the U.K.

Karl Wallinger – former member of The Waterboys and founder of World Party. Had the pleasure of interviewing him in 1997. He was thoroughly engaging and amazingly humble, wanting to gush more about The Beach Boys than talk about himself. World Party’s “Goodbye Jumbo” was the “Pet Sounds” of the 1990s, IMHO.

C'mon pack your bags, clear the floor
Let's step out through the open door
Leave a note that says goodbye

– “When the Rainbow Comes”

Eric Carmen – I love power pop, and growing up in Ohio, The Raspberries were our Beatles. Ten years ago, I made a power-pop playlist on Spotify, titling it "365 Days of Power Pop" – a power-pop song for every day of the year. I decided I wanted to turn it into a story on Pauseandplay.com (Read here), so I figured, why not reach out to Carmen himself? I contacted the webmaster of Carmen’s site, and he forwarded the interview request to Carmen, who then emailed me back and said “When do you want to talk?” I had him on the phone a week later, and we talked for over an hour about all things power pop. He didn’t have to do it, he wanted to. I am eternally grateful for it.

Mike Pinder – keyboardist and co-founder of The Moody Blues. I’m really aging myself here: sometime in the mid-1990s, Pinder mailed me a copy of his latest CD. I emailed him back and asked for an interview and he agreed. Over the next several years, we corresponded, sent Christmas cards, etc.; sometimes, he would call out of the blue and we would talk about what was going on in our lives. A few times, he mailed me copies of his sons’ music and asked for my opinions. He was just a genuinely kind and gentle human being. I miss our conversations.

Martin Phillips – frontman and founder of The Chills. In 1990, Slash Records sent me a promo of “Submarine Bells,” and I was immediately hooked. The Chills were coming to my hometown of Columbus, Ohio, opening for Modern English, so their publicist at Slash got me backstage passes; got to interview Phillips after their soundcheck, and he was funny and gracious, then we drank beers together and watched Modern English. That’s all a music journalist can ask for.

Abdul “Duke” Fakir – last of the original Four Tops. Back in 1999, I interviewed him about “Breaking Through,” a long-lost jazz album that got shelved when the Tops started having pop hits for Motown. He wanted to know what happened to it, so he contacted the company and asked them to find the tapes, so they could “buy it or lease it and we’ll do something with it or it was just going to stay in there and collect dust.” One of Motown’s catalog people found it, called him and said, “ ‘This stuff is pretty terrific; I’m sorry, but we’re going to put this out ourselves.’ I was so happy about that.” His biggest regret was that Levi Stubbs and Lawrence Payton weren’t around to hear it. “The main thing is, I have a copy. It’s for my listening pleasure. I keep it in my car, and if I’m doing errands or going to the golf course, that’s what I put on. It takes me back, and sometimes it brings tears to my eyes; now I can always remember the wonderful days when we were trying to touch the sun.” What a sweet man.