In 2024, we've experienced the loss of several luminaries in the world of entertainment. These beloved figures—actors, comedians, musicians, singers, and coaches—have touched our lives with their talent, passion, and dedication. They've left an indelible mark on our hearts and shaped the world of entertainment in ways that will continue to inspire and influence generations to come.
Among the incredible actors who bid farewell this year, we mourn the loss of a true chameleon who effortlessly.
David Edward Blewitt was an AmericanAcademy Award-nominated film editor, whose credits included Ghostbusters in 1984 has died from Parkinson's disease.he was , 81. Blewitt earned an Academy Award nomination for his work on The Competition in 1980.[1]
David Blewitt died of complications from Parkinson's disease on July 8, 2010, in Sherman Oaks, California, at the age of 81.[1] He was survived by his wife, Ann; daughter, Rita Bastien; and a granddaughter. [1]
Maria Olívia da Silva of Brazil was a claimant to the title of world's oldest person ever. She died on Georgian woman Antisa Khvichava's claimed 130th birthday.
(claimed 28 February 1880 – 8 July 2010)
Life
Da Silva was born in Itapetininga, São Paulo, and lived in Astorga, Paraná.[1] She was of Polish descent. She was married twice[1], the first time allegedly in 1893, and has outlived all but three of her 14 children.[1] Four of them were adopted. Da Silva lived with her 63-year-old adopted son, Aparecido H. Silva.[1]
She was still in good shape at the time of her death, loved to talk, and still had a sharp memory.[1] Da Silva ate rice, beans, and bananas every day.[2] Reportedly, she walked every day to the city to prove that she was still alive, and to get her pension. Some in Astorga protested to the city administration, saying she was too old to be obliged to do this daily.]
In March 2005 she was first claimed to be ten years older than any verifiably documented living person. At the time, the Guinness World Records website considered then 114-year-old Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper, born 29 June 1890, as the world's oldest person, and later retrospectively accepted the claims of María Capovilla, who was then aged 116.
RankBrasil has only produced documents dating from the 1970s or later, including the birth certificate on its website indicating she was born in 1880, and a Brazilian ID with the same birthdate.
The oldest living person verifiably documented by Guinness is the French woman Eugénie Blanchard age &0000000000000114.000000114 years, &0000000000000169.000000169 days, who was born three years after da Silva was allegedly already married.
Tuli Kupferberg was an American counterculture poet, author, cartoonist, pacifist anarchist, publisher and co-founder of the band The Fugs has died he was 86.
(September 28, 1923 – July 12, 2010)
Naftali Kupferberg was born into a Jewish, Yiddish-speaking household in New York City. A cum laude graduate of Brooklyn College in 1944, Kupferberg founded the magazine Birth in 1958. Birth ran for only three issues but published notable Beat Generation authors such as Allen Ginsberg, Diane Di Prima, LeRoi Jones, and Ted Joans.
Kupferberg reportedly appears in Ginsberg's poem Howl as the person "who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened and walked away unknown and forgotten into the ghostly daze of Chinatown". The incident in question actually occurred on the Manhattan Bridge, and is mentioned in the prose poem "Memorial Day 1971" written by Ted Berrigan and Anne Waldman:
I asked Tuli Kupferberg once, "Did you really jump off of The Manhattan Bridge?" "Yeah," he said, "I really did." "How come?" I said. "I thought that I had lost the ability to love," Tuli said. "So, I figured I might as well be dead. So, I went one night to the top of The Manhattan Bridge, & after a few minutes, I jumped off." "That's amazing," I said. "Yeah," Tuli said, "but nothing happened. I landed in the water, & I wasn't dead. So I swam ashore, & went home, & took a bath, & went to bed. Nobody even noticed."
Kupferberg self-published the book Beatniks; or, The War Against the Beats in 1961. Perhaps his best-known book is 1001 Ways to Beat the Draft (1966), a satirical collage created with Robert Bashlow. In 1961, he wrote 1001 Ways to Live Without Working, which actually contains 1005 ways to live without working. The book also contains a number of old advertisements, for items such as raffles for slaves, and unfailing ways to cure cancer and obesity. One of his last published volumes is Teach Yourself Fucking, a collection of cartoons which was published by Autonomedia in 2000.
In 1964, Kupferberg formed the satirical rock group The Fugs with poet Ed Sanders. Kupferberg took their name from Norman Mailer's substitute for the word "fuck" in his novel The Naked and the Dead. He was one of the band's singers and wrote many of their songs. He also released two solo albums: No Deposit, No Return in 1966, which is a collection of found pop poetry, and Tuli & Friends in 1989.
Kupferberg was active in New York pacifist anarchist circles. He appeared as a soldier with machine gun policing Manhattan in W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism, a 1971 film. He was featured in a cameo appearance in the Richard Pryor underground film Dynamite Chicken and more recently in the music video for Williamsburg Will Oldham Horror by Jeffrey Lewis. His bi-weekly T.V. show "Revolting News" airs on Manhattan Neighborhood Network's Channel 56 on alternate Mondays at 10 P.M. EST. The show may also be accessed internet stream at MNNs website. Tuli's YouTube channel is called "tulifuli."
Tuli Kupferberg suffered a stroke in April 2009 at his home in New York City. It left him severely visually impaired, and in need of regular nursing care. After treatment for a number of days at a hospital in New York, followed by convalescence at a nursing home, he then recuperated at his home. He continued to write songs and add "perverbs' to his YouTube and DailyMotion channels, both called "tulifuli." According to The Fugs website, The Fugs had been in the studio completing a new CD, entitled "Be Free", featuring five of Kupferberg’s new songs, including the anthem, “Backward Jewised Soldiers,” and a setting of his famous poem, “Greenwich Village of My Dreams.” According to Exclaim! Magazine, in his last few years, Kupferberg took to posting clips on his YouTube channel.
Tuli Kupferberg died in Manhattan on July 12, 2010.
Bibliography
* Beating (1959) * Children's Writings (1959) * Children as Authors: A Big Bibliography (1959, with Sylvia Topp) * Snow Job: Poems 1946-1959 (1959) * Selected Fruits & Nuts (1959) * Stimulants, An Exhibition (1960) * 1001 Ways to Live Without Working (1961) * The Grace & Beauty of the Human Form (1961) * 3,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Beatniks : or, The War Against the Beats (1961) * Sex and War (1962) * The Mississippi (A Study of the White Race) (1962) * The Rub-Ya-Out of Omore Diem (1962) * The Christine Keeler Colouring Book & Cautionary Tale (1963) * Kill for Peace (1965) * Caught in the Act: a Legal Vaudeville (1966) * The Book of the Body (with Judith Wehlau, 1966) * I Say to Masturbate is Human, to Fuck Divine (1966) * 1001 Ways to Beat the Draft (with Robert Bashlow, 1967) * Fuck Nam : a morality play (1967) * 1001 Ways to Make Love (1969) * Newspoems (1971) * Listen to the Mockingbird; satiric songs to tunes you know (1973) * As They Were (with Sylvia Topp, 1973) * Universal Housewife (1975) * First Glance (with Sylvia Topp, 1978) * As They Were Too (with Sylvia Topp, 1979) * O God! (1980) * The Crazy Paper (1980) * Less Newspoems (1981) * Questionable Cartoons (1981) * True Professions (1981) * Why Don't We Do It in the Bed? (1982) * Was It Good For You Too? (1983) * After the Balls Are Ova (1984) * In Media's Feces (1986) * Kill For Peace, Again (1987) * Reaganation (1987) * The Tuli Kupferberg Instant Lottery Broadside (1988) * The Dark Night of the Soul in the Poetry Mines (1988) * Signed By the Artist (1990) * Don't Make Trouble (1991) * My Prick is Bigger Than Yours (1992) * The Land that God Remembered (1992) * The Old Fucks at Home (1992) * You Know Helen : Maybe Chimps Know a Lot More Than We Think (1994) * Hey Ann! : What's The Diff Between Religion & Patriotism? (with Dave Jordan, 1994) * Whitman said : "In order to have great art you have to have great audiences!"(1994) * When I Hear the Word 'Culture' I Reach for My Gun (1994) * I Hate Poems About Poems About Poems (1994) * Great Moments in the History of Sport : No. 4, The Spartans Invent Football (1994) * Teach Yourself Fucking (2000) * Paris I Have Never Seen (2001)
Lincoln Barrington "Sugar" Minott was a Jamaican reggae singer, producer and sound-system operator has died he was 54.
(May 25, 1956 – July 10, 2010) Biography
After working as a selector on the Sound of Silence Keystone sound system, and then his own Gathering of Youth system, he began his singing career as part of The African Brothers in 1969, along with Tony Tuff and Derrick Howard.The group released several singles in the first half of the 1970s on labels such as Micron and their own Ital label, and were an early example of the Rastafari movement's influence on the Jamaican music scene, taking a clear lead from The Abyssinians. After recording "Mysterious Nature" for producer Rupie Edwards, the group recorded 1974's "No Cup No Broke" for Studio One, breaking up shortly after. Minott then teamed up with the producer Clement "Coxsone" Dodd, as studio apprentice at Dodd's Studio One, working as a singer, guitarist and percussionist, and soon began recording his own singles.Minott developed a talent for writing new songs to fit over existing rhythms (which at the time was common when singers performed live, but rare in the studio), often proving more popular than the original songs, pioneering an approach that would be central to the emerging dancehall style.
After a number of moderately successful hits for Studio One, such as "Vanity", "Hang On Natty", "Mr. DC", and "Jah Jah Children", his debut LP Live Loving made his name and increased his popularity, and is regarded as pioneering the dancehall style that would dominate the early 1980s. It was followed in 1979 with a second album, Showcase, which included his singles that had been omitted from the first album.
The Bittersweet album followed, and then the third album of 1979, Ghetto-ology, which saw a return to roots reggae. Roots Lovers (1980) saw a move towards lovers rock, which was a UK hit. He became a bigger star in the UK than in Jamaica, his self-produced "Hard Time Pressure" being a major UK reggae hit in 1980, leading Minott to relocate to the UK, where he became a focus for UK reggae.
Singles such as "Run Come", "Not for Sale", "African Girl", "Lovers Rock", "In a Dis Ya Time", "Africa" and "Make It with You" (with Carroll Thompson) were hits in the years that followed. "Good Thing Going" (a cover of a song originally recorded by Michael Jackson in 1971) was picked up for distribution by RCA and reached Number 4 in the UK Singles Chart in March 1981, leading to an album of the same name. The Herbman Hustling album saw a return to dancehall and roots reggae.
He released an album of recordings from Channel One Studios, With Lots Of Extra in 1983, collecting several hits from his time working with Winston Holness. While Minott was in England he discovered the group Musical Youth and released a number of successful Lovers Rock singles.
Returning to Jamaica, his Youth Promotion sound system performed regularly in Kingston's Maxfield Park, featuring Jah Stitch and newcomers who had been nurtured by his organization such as Ranking Joe, Captain Sinbad, and Ranking Dread. His Black Roots label featured his productions of these artists plus others such as Barry Brown, Tenor Saw, Little John, Tony Tuff, Barrington Levy, Horace Andy, and one of his discoveries from England, Trevor Hartley.Minott also produced early works by Nitty Gritty, Junior Reid, Yami Bolo, Colourman, Daddy Freddy and Garnett Silk, who recorded his first song for Minott.[citation needed]
Throughout the 1980s the hits kept coming. Able to encompass different styles from rough roots to sweet lovers, through to classic dancehall, he was an artist of some influence. In that period he was working for all the top producers in Jamaica including, Mikey Dread, George Phang, Sly & Robbie, Philip "Fatis" Burrell, Channel One, Prince Jammy, and Donovan Germain, as well as recording for United States-based Lloyd "Bullwhackie" Barnes (the Wicked A Go feel It album from 1984). His biggest hits included "Herbman Hustling", "No Vacancy", "Jamming In The Street", "Rub A Dub Sound", "Buy Off The Bar", "Rydim", and "Devil's Pickney".
He linked up with Sly & Robbie for 1984's "Rub a Dub Sound Style" single, which is regarded as a prototype for the ragga style that developed in the mid-1980s.
Sugar Minott continued to record on his Black Roots label, Youth Promotion Label and for Major and Independent labels. His albums receive increasingly exciting reviews.[4] He released over 60 albums and hundreds of singles.
Sugar is one of the artists who appeared on the (2006) record, Radiodread, released by the Easy Star label, he provided the guest vocals on the song "Exit Music (For a Film)".
Minott's desire for independence led him to leave Studio One in 1978 and form his own Black Roots Records label and Youth Promotion organization, the latter with the aim of helping young singers from the same ghetto background as himself. Minott also ran the Youthman Promotion sound-system, giving many young performers their first public exposure. Youthman Promotion again is on the rise, with a strew of new vibrant selectors working alongside the veterans Major Stitch, Ragga Steve and Drifter. The new selectors added to the sound are Starry B, DJ Steewy and DJ Kaos in JA and Empress Skortcher and Poochiny in the USA, Daddy Ants Mr.Shorty, Prento Youth Colorman Earl Minott (UK).
Death
Minott died on 10 July 2010 at the University Hospital of the West Indies in St. Andrew, after being admitted there earlier that day. The cause of death is yet to be announced. He had been affected by a heart condition since early 2009, and cancelled several performances in May 2010 due to chest pains.
Discography
* Live Loving (1978, Studio One)
* Showcase (1979, Studio One)
* Bittersweet (1979, Ballistic)
* Black Roots (1979, Black Roots/Island)
* Ghetto-ology (1979, Trojan)
* Roots Lovers (1980, Black Roots)
* Give The People (1980, Ballistic)
* African Girl (1981, Black Roots)
* Good Thing Going (1981, RCA)
* Dancehall Showcase (1983, Black Roots)
* With Lots Of Extra (1983, Hitbound)
* Herbman Hustling (1984, Black Roots)
* Slice Of The Cake (1984, Black Roots)
* Wicked a Go Feel It (1984, Wackies)
* Leader For The Pack (1985, Striker Lee)
* Rydim (1985, Greensleeves)
* Time Longer Than Rope (1985, Greensleeves)
* Inna Reggae Dance Hall (1986, Black Roots)
* Sugar & Spice (1986, Taxi)
* Jamming In The Streets (1987, Wackies)
* African Soldier (1988, Black Roots)
* Buy Off De Bar (1988, Sonic Sounds)
* Sugar Minott & Youth Promotion (1988, NEC)
* Lovers Rock Inna Dance Hall (1988, Youth Promotion)
* Sufferers Choice (1988, Black Roots)
* Ghetto Youth Dem Rising (1988, Black Roots)
* The Boss Is Back (1989, RAS)
* Ghetto Child (1989, Black Roots)
* Smile (1990, L&M)
* A Touch of Class (1991, Jammy's)
* Happy Together (1991, Black Roots)
* Run Things (1993, VP)
* Breaking Free (1994, RAS)
* International (1996, RAS)
* Musical Murder (1997, VP)
* Good Thing Going (1998, VP)
* Easy Squeeze (1999, World)
* Simply the Best (2000), World
* From the Heart (2000), Blackwacks
* Leave Out a Babylon (2005), Discograph
* In A Lovers Roots Style (2008), Pinnacle
* Tribute to Studio One (2009), Tad's
* New Day (2009), Stop Look Listen
Melvin Harrison "Mel" Turpin was an American professional basketball player, has died from an apparent suicide by gunshot he was , 49.
(December 28, 1960 – July 8, 2010)
Life and career
A 6'11" center, Turpin was born in Lexington, Kentucky and attended Fork Union Military Academy in Fork Union, Virginia from 1979-1980. He was FUMA's most valuable player for the postgraduate squad under coach Fletcher Arritt. He was also voted the number one player in the state for varsity basketball. While at FUMA, he averaged 19 points, 12 rebounds, and six blocked shots per game. He was inducted into the Fork Union Military Academy Hall of Fame in 2000.[1]
At the University of Kentucky, Turpin made the 1st Team All-SEC for 1982 and 1983, and was a starter for the NCAA Final Four Kentucky Wildcats Team (1983-1984). In 1984, he was the SEC scoring leader, and he still holds the record for the most field goals made in SEC tournament play in addition to the co-holder for the individual with the most points scored in a single SEC tournament game (1984). Turpin scored 42 points in a game against Tennessee as a junior by making 18 of 22 shots from the field. He similarly dominated LSU as a senior, shooting 15 of 17 from the floor and five of six from the foul line.[2]
After four seasons he was drafted as the sixth overall pick in the first round by the Washington Bullets in the 1984 NBA Draft, and immediately traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers. As a professional, however, Turpin struggled with his weight, and after five seasons with the Cavaliers, the Utah Jazz and the Bullets, he retired. Earning the derisive nicknames "Dinner Bell Mel" and "The Mealman", Turpin was considered one of the biggest busts in a draft class that included future greats such as Hakeem Olajuwon, Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley and John Stockton.[3] In a 2004 Sports Illustrated article, Turpin quipped, "In my day, they thought the big man was supposed to be thin. They didn't know too much. It was medieval".[4]
Ezekiel was the producer of the label Som Livre , an engraver of Globo Organizations , chaired by John Araujo , father of singer Cazuza .J Along with the late producer Guto Graça Mello , was the mentor of the singer and his band, the Red Baron .He wrote for the magazine Rolling Stone . Ezekiel followed the career of Baron, which produced all the albums from the beginning, and was also a musical partner of Cazuza.
His death occurred exactly on the 20th anniversary of the death of his great friend and pupil Music, Cazuza . Zeca, as he was known, suffered from a cancer on the brain and died in St. Vincent Clinic in Gávea , South Zone of Rio de Janeiro .
Daniel Cho, a cellist for Regina Spektor, reportedly drowned Tuesday, July 6, in Lake Geneva, Switzerland, according to Geneva Lunch. The tragedy happened a day before Spektor's scheduled gig at the Montreux Jazz Festival.
Spektor still managed to take the stage at Montreux, where she was described as distraught and in tears. She made it through her performance, with several breaks needed for her to regain her composure.
In addition to his musical career, Cho was also a correspondent for ESPN Soccernet, where he's been covering South Korea's World Cup team. His original cello and piano compositions can be heard at his MySpace page. To see more of who died in 2010 click here
Jansen began his musical journey in pop bands such as The Rockets, performing music made popular by the South African radio stations such as Springbok Radio. The first instruments he played were the concertina and the mouth organ. The repertoire of the first bands he played with was comprised of British pop of the hippie era. But after a trip to London, which was part of a prize in a band competition, he soon discovered black music from the USA and in particular the groups with brass sections and he decided he wanted to be a brass instrument player. Brass instrument bands were not new to Robbie as his father was associated with the Salvation Army bands, but he chose the rock and jazz genre for himself. He played in the brass section of Cape Town's cult jazz/rock group Pacific Express from where he went solo as an alto-sax player and singer.
His former bands were all in some way ground breakers. Such groups as Oswietie, The Hearthrob and Sons of Table Mountain all offered original music.
His history in music reflects the history of the Coloured People under apartheid. Jansen was self taught. His work with Dollar Brand and Basil Coetzee in the 1970s introduced him to jazz audiences in many countries, and he became leading figure in Cape Jazz.
Jansen became very ill in July 2005 and the provincial government of the Western Cape announced that his medical bills would be met by the state. This was immensely popular with Capetonians and when Jansen returned to performing, usually with his band Sons of the Table Mountain, he was always met with affection, love and respect. Unlike many of his fellow jazz musicians from the apartheid years he welcomed all into his musical experience.
In 2006 his album, Nomad Jazz, was finalist for a SAMA Award, as best Jazz album of the year. He has two other solo albums, Vastrap Island and The Cape Doctor. The albums were produced by Patrick Lee-Thorp for the Mountain Records label.
A blow to his career came in March 2007 when his doctors said that he could no longer travel long distances by air due to his respiratory condition. This forced the cancellation of his 2007 European tour and put an end to his international performances.
Fuqua founded the seminal R&B/doo wop group the Moonglows in the 1950s. He is noted for later having been one of the key figures in the development of the Motown label in Detroit, Michigan: his group gave Marvin Gaye's musical career a start, and Fuqua and his wife at the time, Gwen Gordy, distributed the very first Motown hit single, Barrett Strong's "Money (That's What I Want)", on their record label, Anna Records. Fuqua later sold Anna Records to Gwen's brother Berry Gordy, and became a songwriter and executive at Motown.
Fuqua was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and was the nephew of Charlie Fuqua of The Ink Spots. In 1951, with Bobby Lester, Alexander Graves and Prentiss Barnes, he formed a vocal group, the Crazy Sounds, in Louisville, later moving with other members of the group to Cleveland, Ohio. There, they were taken under the wing of disc jockey Alan Freed, who renamed them "The Moonglows" after his own nickname, 'Moondog'. The Moonglows' first releases were for Freed's Champagne label in 1953. They then recorded for the Chance label in Chicago, before signing for Chess Records in 1954. Their single "Sincerely" reached #1 on the BillboardR&B chart, and # 20 on the Hot 100, in late 1954.[1]
Recording on Chess Records, Fuqua initially shared lead vocals with Lester, but eventually asserted himself as the leader of the group. This changed in 1957 when he, in effect, sacked the other members and installed a new group, previously known as the Marquees, which included Marvin Gaye. The new group, billed as Harvey and the Moonglows, had immediate further success, but Fuqua left in 1958. The Moonglows reunited temporarily in 1972, and in 2000 were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
While on the Chess label, Fuqua also appeared on record in duets with Etta James, having hits with "If I Can't Have You" (#6 R&B, #52 pop, 1960) and "Spoonful" (#12 R&B, #78 pop, 1961).[2]
Fuqua left the Moonglows when Leonard Chess suggested that he join Anna Records in Detroit. At Anna Records, Fuqua began working with Anna Gordy, Billy Davis, Lamont Dozier and Johnny Bristol. He also introduced Marvin Gaye to Anna's brother, Berry Gordy, and married their sister Gwen Gordy. In 1961, he started his own labels, Tri-Phi Records and Harvey Records, whose acts included the Spinners, Junior Walker and Shorty Long. However, tiring of running a small independent label, Fuqua welcomed the opportunity to work at Motown, and was hired to head the label's Artist Development department and meanwhile worked as a producer for the company. Fuqua brought the Spinners and Johnny Bristol to Motown, and co-produced several hits with Bristol. He was also responsible for bringing Tammi Terrell to the label, and for suggesting and producing her duets with Marvin Gaye, including "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and "Your Precious Love".
Around 1971, Fuqua left Motown and signed a production deal with RCA Records, having success particularly with the band New Birth. He also discovered disco pioneer Sylvester, and "Two Tons O' Fun" (aka The Weather Girls), producing Sylvester's hit singles "Dance (Disco Heat)" and "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" in 1978 as well as his album Stars in 1979. He also served as Smokey Robinson's road manager. In 1982 he reunited with Marvin Gaye to produce the singer's Midnight Love album which included the single "Sexual Healing". In 2000 he set up his own "Resurging Artist Records", and also acted as a trustee of The Rhythm and Blues Foundation.
Fuqua resided in Las Vegas, Nevada until his death from a heart attack in a hospital in Detroit on July 6, 2010.[3] His nephew is filmmaker Antoine Fuqua.
Discography
Charitable Work
In March 1995, Harvey Fuqua, along with his wife Dr. Carolyne, incorporated The Foundation for the S.T.A.R.S., a nonprofit organization that reaches out to address some of the difficulties that plague underprivileged youth in the inner-cities of America, with the belief that every dream should at least have the opportunity to be realized.
In 1996, the From Me to We Foundation, a division of S.T.A.R.S. (Souls Taking Action Reaching Souls) was created to address the needs of youth in developing countries. Over the past fifteen years, it has developed programs in the areas of education, housing, and medicine for youth worldwide, such as the adoption of the Gourna Village in Luxor, Egypt, under the Adopt-a-Village Program. In recent years, Dr. Carolyne has traveled to Ghana, West Africa, to further her soul-liberating work in Begoro Village and Accra. She has also traveled to Uganda, participating in a discourse with prime ministers, ambassadors, and members of Parliament on future humanitarian efforts. The S.T.A.R.S. International Scholarship Fund has led to the education of students in Egypt, Ghana, and India.
In 2009, their love of music led to the formation of The S.T.A.R.S. Vocal Ensemble.[4] (Singers Taking Action Reaching Souls), that travels the globe lifting hearts and souls with their transformative singing and songs.
It was the Fuquas' dream to make a difference on the planet through the power of music, and now with The S.T.A.R.S. Vocal Ensemble, his dream is realized. Harvey Fuqua introduced the world to such artists as Marvin Gaye and the Spinners. As this legendary singer and producer passes on, he leaves us with one last gift: he introduces the world to The S.T.A.R.S.
In honor of Harvey's life, we're providing an opportunity to donate to S.T.A.R.S. Click on the little number two to go to the website.[5] With your loving contribution, Harvey's dream stays alive as this vocal ensemble travels the world spreading love and joy through music.
Jia was born 19 March 1967 – 5 July 2010 in Jilin Sipin, near Beijing, China, to Jia Fengsen and Chai Xiuling, both retired theater actors from northeast China. He had a younger sister, Wang Tong.
Life and career
Jia began acting in the late 1980s, and is probably best remembered in the 2001 Chinese drama film, Quitting, a movie that chronicles his life and his story, in which he struggles to overcome drug and alcohol addiction. He also appeared in other Chinese films.
He graduated from the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing in 1989, and soon gained fame in the late 1980s and early 1990s as an actor in films such as The Case of the Silver Snake and A Woman from North Shaanxi. While rehearsing for a stageplay titled Kiss of the Spider Woman (also directed by Zhang Yang) in the fall of 1992, Jia first became exposed to marijuana and eventually became addicted, while also experimenting occasionally with heroin. Then, in 1995, after filming Weekend Lovers, Jia quit acting completely and lived off his younger sister Wang Tong. He was also an avid fan of The Beatles. He listened to their music obsessively and began to fantasize himself as the son of the lead singer, John Lennon.
In late 1995, his parents decided to move to Beijing in order to help their son quit drugs. Wang Tong also came back to live with her parents and brother in the same apartment. Several efforts made by his parents to penetrate their son's inner world were met with indifference, sometimes even hostility. Over time, however, Jia began to open up. He started to take regular walks with his father, usually buying a bottle or two of beer along the way. Jia Fengsen also bought his son cassette tapes by The Beatles.
In early 1996, Jia relapsed after being off drugs for almost six months. On 19 March of that year, after drinking several bottles of beer for the celebration of his twenty-ninth birthday, Jia slapped his father, claiming it was to teach him the "meaning of life". Jia's family was upset by this and felt he needed to be taught a lesson. They contacted the police, and three officers arrived at their house the next day. Jia was taken into custody and sent to a mental institution.
Upon arrival at the institution, after being placed on medication, his condition improved greatly. He also stopped fantasizing and started to see himself as just an ordinary human being. His doctor determined that Jia was not suffering from schizophrenia but recommended that he stay a little longer to sober completely. He was finally discharged on 19 March 1997, his thirtieth birthday.
Death
On 5 July 2010, Jia jumped to death from Building 19, an apartment building at the Anyuan Beili Community in Chaoyang District in Beijing. He was found dead on the trunk of a car around 6:00pm.
Morgan's career as a poet began in the mid-1950s when he was 16 and living alone in London. He entered the British Army and rose to the rank of infantry platoon commander while serving in West Germany but began to question this career choice. By the mid-1960s he had become a pacifist and resigned his commission.
In 1964 he moved to Edinburgh, where he started to publish his poems and to perform recitals in public.
Born a Lancastrian, he returned to the North of England in 1971, though this time to Yorkshire, to live and work in the fishing village of Robin Hood's Bay.
Over the years he has emphasized the oral tradition of poetry and song. It is no surprise therefore that some of his poems have been set to music and have been recorded by such artists as Al Stewart ("My Enemies Have Sweet Voices" on the 1970 "Zero She Flies" album), The McCalmans and most recently The Levellers. (During his 1999 UK Tour, Al Stewart invited Morgan to read the lyrics as he performed the above song in the City Varieties Theatre show at Leeds on the 7th. of November).
Morgan's BBC Television series - 'A Voyage Between Two Seas', first screened in 1983, presented a journey across Northern England via the region's waterways. His subsequent TV programme 'The Grain Run', told the story of the Roman supply route from East Anglia to the Yorkshire town of Aldborough.
His most recent book of poetry was August Light ISBN 1-904614-23-X, published in 2006.
His output was slim – only five collections and a handful of pamphlets in 40 years – but Pete Morgan's poetry was admired by Carol Ann Duffy, Ted Hughes and George Mackay Brown, among others, for its sophistication, humour and poignancy. Morgan, who has died aged 71, had his first pamphlet published in 1968 by the Kevin Press. Entitled A Big Hat Or What?, its cover featured a photograph of Morgan looking smart, long-limbed and wearing said large hat.
Morgan's work was included in Faber's Poetry: Introduction series in 1971. When his first full-length collection, The Grey Mare Being the Better Steed, was published in 1973, he was hailed by Edna Longley, in the Times Literary Supplement, as "a genuine original". He was also admired by musicians. Al Stewart set his poem My Enemies Have Sweet Voices to music on his 1970 album Zero She Flies. The McCalmans and the Levellers also turned his poems into songs.
Morgan was born in Leigh, Lancashire, the oldest of three children. His father, who died when Morgan was 11, had been in the army and his mother's family ran a laundry business. He attended Normanton school in Derbyshire and left at 16 to move to London, where he pinned his poems to trees on Hampstead Heath in an early attempt to find an audience.
In 1957 Morgan joined the army. He rose to the rank of infantry platoon commander of the Loyal Regiment, but by the mid-1960s had resigned his commission, having become a pacifist. Moving to Edinburgh, he began performing his poems, appearing at the Traverse theatre as part of the Edinburgh festival in 1965. At his early gigs, he read love ballads and protest pieces that matched the mood of the times, but were more nuanced than those of his contemporaries. He married Kate Smith in 1965 and they had two children, Caitlin and Martin.
In the early 1970s Morgan taught creative writing at Lumb Bank, an Arvon writing house in Heptonstall, West Yorkshire, where he encouraged a young Ian McMillan, among others. McMillan later wrote of the encounter: "He was wearing a denim shirt. He was having a glass of wine and we hadn't even had our tea! On that first night the tutors read their work to us students. Pete stood by the fire. He opened his book and then didn't look at it because the poem, it seemed to me, was written on his heart."
He also became a friend of Hughes, and the pair corresponded and shared a mutual respect for each other's work. Morgan presented a series of arts programmes for BBC North as well as the 1983 series A Voyage Between Two Seas, which explored the waterway system between Leeds and Liverpool.
He continued to publish full-length collections: The Spring Collection in 1979, One Greek Alphabet in 1980, and A Winter Visitor in 1983. A Winter Visitor celebrated the Robin Hood's Bay area of North Yorkshire, where Morgan had resided since 1971, captured in these lines from the poem Gouge:
We live where ice
Gouged out an eye
Inching to its own oblivion
and after ice
came stone and rock
a premonition on the face
of what was greening into new
It was his last collection for more than two decades. After suffering a brain tumour in 1984, Morgan was unable to travel and perform. He wrote at home. He relished "a freedom not to have to write, to keep the poems in (my) head", but also regretted that he had not published more and not appeared more regularly on the poetry-reading circuit.
Morgan maintained a line in self-deprecating humour, and had a rich and sonorous voice that worked beautifully in performance.
In 2001 he collaborated with the cellist Tony Moore on Talking Cello, a programme for Radio 4 that featured a number of Morgan's poems. His final full-length collection, August Light, was published in 2005. He also wrote two plays for theatre.
A sold-out concert celebrating his 70th birthday was held at York University last year. The guests included McMillan and Duffy, who said of Morgan: "Pete's the real thing."
He is survived by Kate, Caitlin and Martin.
• Colin Peter Morgan, poet, born 7 June 1939; died 5 July 2010
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