Teddy Pendergrass died he was 59

Teddy Pendergrass died he was 59. He was born Theodore Pendergrass on March 26, 1950, in Philadelphia, PA; married Karen Still, in June of 1987; children: Theodore Jr., Tamon, Tisha Lazette, and LaDonna. Teddy Pendergrass started singing gospel music in Philadelphia churches, becoming an ordained minister at ten years old. While attending public school, he sang in the citywide McIntyre Elementary School Choir and in the All-City Stetson Junior High School Choir. A self-taught drummer, Pendergrass had a teen pop vocal group when he was 15.

By his late teens, Pendergrass was a drummer for local vocal group the Cadillacs. In the late '60s, the Cadillacs merged with another more-established group, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. In 1970, when the Blue Notes broke up, Melvin, now aware of Pendergrass' vocal prowess, asked him to take the lead singer spot. It's no secret that Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff wanted Marvin Junior of the Dells for their Philadelphia International Records roster. Since the Dells were signed to Chess, they were unavailable. When the gruff'n'ready vocals of Pendergrass came their way, they eagerly signed the group.


Beginning with "I Miss You," a steady stream of hit singles flowed from the collaboration of Pendergrass and Gamble & Huff: "If You Don't Know Me By Now," "The Love I Lost," "Bad Luck," "Wake Up Everybody" (number one R&B for two weeks in 1976), and two gold albums, To Be True and Wake Up Everybody.



Unfortunately, the more success the group had, the more friction developed between Melvin and Pendergrass. Despite the revised billing of the group, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes featuring Theodore Pendergrass, Pendergrass felt that he wasn't getting enough recognition. Around 1976, Pendergrass left Melvin's Blue Notes and formed his own Blue Notes, featuring Teddy Pendergrass. Briefly, there was some confusion as to which Blue Notes were which. The resolution came when Pendergrass disbanded his Blue Notes in favor of a solo career and Melvin's group signed a recording contract with Source Records, distributed through ABC Records, scoring a hit with "I Want to Be Your Lover."

Pendergrass signed a new contract with Philadelphia International Records in late 1976/early 1977. He burst back on the scene with Teddy Pendergrass, a platinum solo debut that included the top-notch singles "I Don't Love You Anymore," "You Can't Hide From Yourself," and "The More I Get the More I Want." Around this time, Pendergrass began to institute his infamous "Ladies Only" concerts. His next three albums went gold or platinum: Life Is a Song Worth Singing (1978), Teddy (1979), and Teddy Live (Coast to Coast). The hit single "Close the Door" was used in the film Soup for One, where Pendergrass had a small role.

The singer received several Grammy nominations during 1977 and 1978, Billboard's 1977 Pop Album New Artist Award, an American Music Award for best R&B performer of 1978, and awards from Ebony magazine and the NAACP. He was also in consideration for the lead in the movie biopic The Otis Redding Story. The '70s ended, but Pendergrass kept racking up the hits. TP, his fifth solo album, went platinum in the summer of 1980 off the singles "Turn Off the Lights," "Come Go With Me," "Shout and Scream," "It's You I Love," and "Can't We Try." It's Time for Love gave Pendergrass another gold album in summer 1981, which included the hit singles "Love TKO" and "I Can't Live Without Your Love."

A 1982 car accident left Pendergrass paralyzed from the waist down and wheelchair bound. After almost a year of physical therapy and counseling, Pendergrass returned to the recording scene, signing a contract with Elektra/Asylum in 1983. His ninth solo album, his Elektra/Asylum debut, Love Language went gold the spring of 1984. Philadelphia International issued two albums of unreleased tracks, This One's for You (1982) and Heaven Only Knows (1983). Other albums included Workin' It Back (1985), Joy (1988, whose title track went to number one R&B for two weeks), and Little More Magic (1993). The latter half of '90s found Pendergrass recording for the Surefire/Wind Up label. Truly Blessed (the name of an 1991 Elektra album) is the title of the autobiography Pendergrass co-authored with Patricia Romanowski. ~ Ed Hogan, All Music Guide

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Amir Vahedi died he was 58

Amir Vahedi was an Iranian professional poker player born in Tehran, Iran  died he was 58.
(December. 1952 – January 8, 2010)

After owning several businesses in the U.S., Vahedi took on poker as a full-time profession, rising to prominence in 2003 when he won his first and only World Series of Poker bracelet and finished sixth in the Main Event.
Vahedi’s career tournament earnings totaled more than $3.3 million and he once famously tutored actor Ben Affleck when Affleck caught the poker bug.
Vahedi was named no limit Texas hold 'em player of the year in 2001 and was second to Men Nguyen for Card Player Magazine's 2003 player of the year. In 2003 he made the final table of the main event of the World Series of Poker and finished sixth, netting a $250,000 prize. Earlier in the series he won his first WSOP bracelet and $270,000 in a separate no limit Texas hold 'em event.


Vahedi was also the season three champion of the Ultimate Poker Challenge.
Vahedi won over $3,250,000 in live tournament play.^[2] His 9 cashes at the WSOP account for $671,216 of those winnings.^[3]

However, the Sherman Oaks, California resident was perhaps most famous for constantly chomping on an unlit cigar at the poker table.

Vahedi died due to complications with his diabetes on January 8, 2010.^[4]

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Jayne Walton Rosen died she was 92

Jayne Walton Rosen has died she was 92. Rosen didn't know the middle-aged man who asked to see her at Morningside Ministries at the Meadows last year. The man introduced himself, reached into his backpack and pulled out an 8-by-10 photograph of a young woman.

“I paid $40 for your picture on eBay,” he told the puzzled nursing home resident, asking for her autograph. Then he showed other residents the picture.

Jayne Walton Rosen, the second singer to dubbed the "Champagne Lady," holds a 1940s photo of herself.

It was from the era of baton-waving bandleaders and dancers whirling across ballroom floors. And the woman, so young in the photo and now 92, is forever linked to that era.

At birth, her name was Flanagan. On the stage, it was Walton. In the '50s, it became Rosen.

But in the end, Jayne Walton Rosen may be best remembered as “the Champagne Lady” who sang with the Lawrence Welk Orchestra during World War II, performing ballads in ballrooms throughout the Midwest and in New York.

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Rosen, who set out to become a professional singer as soon as she graduated from Brackenridge High School, died Sunday. She was 92.

As a child, she lived in Torreón, in Mexico's Coahuila state, where her father worked for a silver mining company.

Daniel Rosen, a law professor in Tokyo, said his mother was highly influenced by living in post-revolution Mexico. In addition to learning and singing in Spanish, she became aware of Mexico's wealth, poverty and “profound social divisions.”

“It created (in her) a sense of empathy for people,” he said.

But her life was most influenced by music. Her sister was a dancer. Their mother played piano, and an aunt was an organist at downtown San Antonio's Texas Theater.

Rosen won talent shows at the Majestic Theatre and around town, Daniel Rosen said.

Jayne Walton, as she was known, often sang on local radio stations, then on stations in Dallas, Oklahoma City and Chicago, as well as with bands elsewhere, her son said.

Welk heard her voice on the radio and asked her to join his band. She became a friend of the Welk family.

Rosen wasn't the first to be dubbed his “Champagne Lady,” but she sang with that billing for six years. Welk regarded her ability to sing in Spanish as “exotic,” Daniel Rosen said.

“The biggest record she had was ‘Maria Elena.' She recorded it with him and had a gold record.”

Rosen left the orchestra to become a solo performer, and, her son said, “she had considerable success in New York and Chicago” in the mid- to late '40s.

She married in 1952 and put her career on hold.

“She was an inspirational woman to have as a mother,” he said.

Rosen made guest appearances on Welk's long-running television show from time to time.

Later, Rosen worked as a saleswoman at the old Rhodes department store at Wonderland and Dillard's at Central Park Mall.

Retired for 20 years, Rosen enjoyed good health until recent years. She was on dialysis, had heart disease, then fell and broke her hip.

“She recovered to a remarkable extent,” her son said of her hip injury.

“She had a margarita every night over the holidays,” he said.

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Mick Green, British rock and roll guitarist died he was , 65

Mick Green ^[1] died he was 65, Green was an English rock and roll guitarist. He is best known playing with Johnny Kidd & The Pirates and Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas.

(22 February 1944 – 11 January 2010)

He was born Michael Robert Green,^[2] in Matlock, Derbyshire. Green began his career playing with Johnny Kidd & The Pirates in the early 1960s, then joined Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas in 1964. His ability to play lead and rhythm guitar simultaneously influenced a number of British guitarists to follow, including Pete Townshend and Wilko Johnson, the original guitarist for Dr. Feelgood.^[3] Green's song "Oyeh!" was on Dr. Feelgood's debut album, Down by the Jetty; and a song he co-wrote, "Going Back Home" appeared on Dr. Feelgood's 1975 Malpractice and the live album, Stupidity (1976).


Green reformed The Pirates in the mid 1970s (Kidd having died in 1966).
Green was also a member of the band, Shanghai, who released two albums, in 1974 and 1976, and supported Status Quo on their Blue for You tour.


In the 1980s and 1990s Green played with, amongst others, Bryan Ferry, Van Morrison and Paul McCartney, as well as playing with The Pirates with whom he continued to gig well into the 2000s. His other notable gigs included playing guitar for Van Morrison on the Pyramid Stage at the Glastonbury Festival in 2005, and Paul McCartney at his return to the Cavern Club in support of the latter's Run Devil Run album in 1999.
In his spare time he taught guitar privately, as well as at various local schools.
In 2008, Green performed regularly with the Van Morrison band, and played guitar on five of the tracks on Van Morrison's 2008 album, Keep It Simple.
Green died on 11 January 2010, at the age of 65. The cause of his death was heart failure.


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George Garanian died he was 75

George Garanian died he was 75. Garanian was an ethnic Armenian Russian jazz saxophone player, bandleader and composer. He was the People's Artist of Russia in 1993.


(15 August 1934 – 11 January 2010)
Born in Moscow, Garanian was one of the first Russian musicians who attracted attention of Western world as part of the jazz from the USSR. He belonged to the first generation of Russian jazzmen who started to perform after World War II. As a musician (alto saxophone), conductor and composer he was the leader of country's best big bands: Melodia (1970s-1980s) and Moscow Big Band (1992–1995). He led the Municipal Big Band in the Southern Russian city of Krasnodar.
He died from cardiac arrest in Krasnodar on 11 January 2010 at the age of 75.^[1]


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Juliet Anderson died she was 71

Juliet Anderson (born Judith Carr),^[3] died she was 71. Anderson also known as Aunt Peg, was an American pornographic actress and adult movie producer, relationship counselor and author.^[1] Entering the adult movie business relatively late in life (at age 39), she quickly built a reputation as one of the premier performers in the so-called "golden age of porn," appearing in over seventy films--many of them as "Aunt Peg", where she portrayed a giddy, insatiable woman determined to enjoy life and sex to the maximum extent possible.^[4] In 1984, she started a new career as a relationship counselor and massage therapist, before returning to adult entertainment in the mid 1990s.

(July 23, 1938 – January 11, 2010)

Judith Carr was born and grew up in Burbank, California, the daughter of a jazz trumpet player and an aspiring actress. She was afflicted with Crohn's disease and spent a sizable portion of her youth in the hospital or on bedrest.^[4] Graduating from Burbank High School in 1959 (where she was a straight-A student),^[5] she briefly attended Long Beach State College as an art major before relocating to Hayama, Japan with her then lover, a Navy sailor. A brief marriage to him did not work out, and Juliet spent the next eighteen years in various occupations, including teaching English to foreign students in Japan, Mexico, Greece and Finland.^[5] While teaching in Finland, she also worked as a radio producer. In 1963, while living in Miami, Anderson was secretary to a producer of "nudie" movies and a receptionist at the Burger King home office; she also worked for Avis during this period. In her website autobiography, she indicates that she appeared in an (unnamed) sexploitation film in 1963, portraying a police sergeant.^[5]

During this time, Anderson was known by her birthname of Judith Carr. She did not begin using the moniker "Juliet Anderson" until later in her adult film career, when she made the transition from 8mm productions to feature films.^[6] She has also used the stage names of Alice Rigby, Judy Callin, Ruby Sapphire, Judy Carr, Aunt Peg, Judy Fallbrook, and Judith Anderson.^[7]

After a further period overseas, Anderson returned to the United States during the early 1970s, and became involved in the pornography business while a student at San Francisco State University. She was working in advertising when she answered an ad by hardcore pornography producer Alex d’Renzy, who was looking for an actress.^[4] Cast in the movie Pretty Peaches, Juliet's career quickly took off from there. She acquired the name of "Aunt Peg" during a movie where she was portrayed as having sex with a niece, who cried out: "oh, Aunt Peg!";^[8] It is this moniker by which Anderson is best known to her fans. She appeared in several pornographic magazine pictorials during this timeframe, made appearances on radio and television, and operated a mail-order business, casting agency and a phone-sex service. She also performed in stage shows across the United States, combining comedy and sex in her performances. Anderson later indicated that these stage exhibitions were the "most gratifying" portion of her adult career.^[5]

Although Anderson portrayed many characters during her movie career, all tended to be tough-talking and unsentimental, yet rambunctious, vibrant and even comedic--all at the same time.^[4] She was said never to have faked an orgasm in any of her films.^[9] Author Charles Taylor wrote that she "brought a persona of classic movie-broad to porn," referring to her as "the Joan Blondell of porn". Another critic, Howard Hampton, opined that "her tough, no-nonsense older woman routine would be at home in the margins of any Howard Hawks movie".^[4]

In 1984, Anderson chose to leave the adult film business due to differences between herself and producers regarding the editing of Educating Nina, a film she directed starring Nina Hartley. She moved to northern California, where she ran a bed and breakfast for a time and opened a massage therapy office.^[5] Anderson chose to return to pornography in 1995, making new movies as an actress, producer and director.

In 1998, she directed Ageless Desire, a hardcore video featuring several over-50 real-life couples, including Juliet and her current partner.^[10] Numerous awards followed: Induction into the Erotic Legends Hall of Fame in 1996, an X-rated Critics Organization Hall of Fame Award in 1999, and a "Lifetime Achievement Actress Award" from the Free Speech Coalition in 2001. In 2007, Anderson received an honorary Doctor of the Arts from The Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality.^[5]

By 2009, Anderson lived in Berkeley, California with four cats.^[5] She continued to work in the adult film industry, and had announced plans to produce new films. She also worked as a relationship counselor, giving private workshops for couples focusing on "Tender Loving Touch," in which sexual touching is seen as "play, not as foreplay."^[4] She has contributed to the books The New Sexual Healers: Women of the Light and The Red Thread of Passion, and has authored articles for magazines and newspapers.^[5]

Anderson's body was discovered by a friend on the morning of January 11, 2010. The cause of death was not immediately known, but she was known to have been suffering from Crohn's disease, a painful ailment.^[3]

Awards

• AVN Awards Hall of Fame^[11]
• XRCO Hall of Fame (inducted 1999)^[12]

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Eric Rohmer died he was 89

French New Wave director Eric Rohmer, known for "My Night at Maud's," ''Claire's Knee," and other films about the intricacies of romantic relationships and the dilemmas of modern love, died on Monday. He was 89. Rohmer, also an influential film critic early in his career, died in Paris, said Les Films du Losange, the production company he co-founded. The cause of death was not immediately given. The director — internationally known for his films' long, philosophical conversations — continued to work until recently. His latest film, the 17th-century costume tale "Les amours d'Astree et de Celadon," ("Romance of Astree and Celadon"), appeared in 2007. In 2001, Rohmer was awarded a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for his body of work — dozens of films made over a five-decade career. Rohmer's movies were full of romantic temptation and love triangles, pretty girls and handsome youths. Often they took a lighthearted, chatty form, with serious themes hidden under the surface. French President Nicolas Sarkozy paid tribute to a "great auteur who will continue to speak to us and inspire us for years to come." "Classic and romantic, wise and iconoclast, light and serious, sentimental and moralist, he created the 'Rohmer' style, which will outlive him," Sarkozy said in a statement. Six of Rohmer's films comprised an influential cycle of "moral tales" that addressed the thorny questions of modern love: whether to compromise your beliefs in the face of passion, for example, or how to maintain a sense of individual freedom in a relationship. In 1969's "Ma nuit chez Maud" ("My Night at Maud's"), a churchgoing young engineer played by Jean-Louis Trintignant must choose between a seductive divorcee and a woman who meets his ideals. The film's screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1970's "Le Genou de Claire" ("Claire's Knee"), a diplomat is overwhelmed by his desire to stroke the knee of a teenage girl he meets. France's culture minister, Frederic Mitterrand, said Rohmer's "very personal, very original" movies appealed to cinephiles and ordinary filmgoers alike. Serge Toubiana — who heads the Cinematheque, France's famous film preservation society — said Rohmer worked closely with his crews and described his creative process as a collaborative effort with the actors. "He knew that he needed them and because of that he showered them with love," Toubiana told France Info radio. "Each film was a kind of shared game, with its own rules in which each person played his role." Born in 1920 in the central French city of Tulle, Rohmer got his start as a literature professor and a film critic for the influential Cahiers du Cinema magazine, becoming its editor. Though his name at birth was Maurice Scherer, he created his artistic pseudonym by rearranging the sounds in his first and last name to come up with Rohmer, he told Le Monde newspaper in 2007. As a director, Rohmer became a leading force in France's convention-smashing New Wave cinema, alongside directors Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut, his colleagues at the Cahiers. With Claude Chabrol, another director, Rohmer published a classic study on one of their heroes, Alfred Hitchcock. Along with his series of moral tales, Rohmer produced a cycle of modern-day relationship fables for each season of the year, and another dubbed the cycle of "comedies and proverbs," with each film taking its inspiration from a proverb. One popular film in that series was 1983's "Pauline a la plage" ("Pauline at the Beach"), focusing on a teenager on a seaside holiday. Thierry Fremaux, who runs the Cannes Film Festival, told BFM television that though Rohmer's films weren't "trendy," they were timeless. "He proved that you can make great movies with small budgets," Fremaux said. "And that's good to keep in mind in the times we live in." Rohmer was a very private person, but his survivors are believed to include his younger brother, philosopher Rene Scherer, and his son journalist Rene Monzat. To see more of who died in 2010 click here