Robert "Bobby" Charles Guidry died he was 71

Robert “Bobby” Charles Guidry, the reclusive south Louisiana songwriter of hits for Fats Domino, Frogman Henry and Bill Haley & the Comets, died early Thursday after collapsing at home in Abbeville, his manager said. He was 71.

Known professionally as Bobby Charles, he wrote “Walking to New Orleans,” one of Domino's most beloved songs; “(I Don’t Know Why I Love You) But I Do,” an enduring classic by Henry; and “See You Later Alligator,” a smash for Haley at the dawn of rock ‘n’ roll.

A reluctant performer, Mr. Charles largely disappeared after participating in the Band’s 1976 farewell concert The Last Waltz. He preferred to release the occasional album while living quietly, an enigma whose songs were more famous than he was. Along the way he dealt with a litany of personal disasters ranging from fires to floods to cancer.

Mr. Charles agreed to stage a “comeback” at the 2007 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival presented by Shell, only to back out at the last minute, citing health issues. Mac “Dr. John” Rebennack, Marcia Ball, guitarist Sonny Landreth and other admirers performed his songs in his absence.

"He was the champion south Louisiana songwriter," Landreth said. "Everybody had a favorite Bobby Charles song. He had the gift."

Mr. Charles grew up poor in Abbeville, the son of a gas company truck driver. At 14, he joined a band that entertained at high school dances.

“Nobody in my family wanted me to get into the music business, but I always loved it,” he said during a 2007 interview. “The first time I heard Hank Williams and Fats Domino, it just knocked me down. When I was a kid, I used to pray to be a songwriter like them. My prayers were answered, I guess.”

Leaving a cafe one night, Mr. Charles bid farewell to friends with “see you later, alligator.” As the cafe door closed behind him, a drunken stranger replied, “after ‘while, crocodile.” Not sure he heard correctly, he went back inside and asked the stranger to repeat it.

That couplet inspired him to write “See You Later Alligator.” He sang it over the phone and landed a recording contract, sight unseen, from Chicago blues and R&B label Chess Records. The company’s owners assumed he was black until he stepped off the plane in Chicago.

As a burgeoning teen idol, he hit the road with other Chess artists, the only white guy on the bus. Not all audiences appreciated such integration. The threats soured him on touring. So did the occasional bullet fired his way.

“I never wanted to be a star,” he said. “I’ve got enough problems, I promise you. If I could make it just writing, I’d be happy. Thank God I’ve been lucky enough to have a lot of people do my songs.”

In the 1970s, Mr. Charles wrote a song called “The Jealous Kind.” Joe Cocker recorded it in 1976, followed by Ray Charles, Delbert McClinton, Etta James and Johnny Adams. Kris Kristofferson and Gatemouth Brown covered Mr. Charles’ “Tennessee Blues,” as did newcomer Shannon McNally. Muddy Waters recorded “Why Are People Like That”; so did Houma guitarist Tab Benoit on his Grammy-nominated 2006 album “Brother to the Blues.”

He could not play an instrument or read music. Songs popped into his head, fully formed. To capture them, he’d sing into the nearest answering machine; sometimes he’d call home from a convenience store pay phone.

“I can hear all the chords up here,” he said, pointing to his brain, “but I can’t tell you what they are.”

He counted Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Willie Nelson and James Taylor among his friends and fans. Mickey Raphael, the longtime harmonica player in Willie Nelson's band, appears on Mr. Charles' forthcoming CD. He once encountered Mr. Charles at Nelson's studio outside Austin, Tex.

"He said he wanted to record some music, and he was bringing some musicians," Raphael recalled. "He said, 'This is my guitar player, Neil.' And it was Neil Young.

"He was so unpretentious and laid-back. On further investigation, you'd find out he wrote all these incredible songs."

In his younger years, Mr. Charles raised all kinds of hell. His rogue’s resume included scrapes with the law, a busted marriage, and general excess. “To love and lose -- I know that pain,” he said. “And cocaine killed so many of my friends.”

For a time in the 1970s, he laid low in Woodstock, N.Y. But mostly Mr. Charles holed up in the bosom of south Louisiana, waiting for the next song to come along. Or the next calamity.

For years, he lived on the Vermilion River outside Maurice, La. In the mid-’90s, his house burned down. He moved into a trailer on the grounds of Dockside Studios in Maurice, a favorite haunt. Despondent, he hit the road with one of his four sons and washed up at Holly Beach, a hamlet with 300 permanent residents on the Gulf of Mexico southwest of Lake Charles.

“I’m a Pisces. I love water,” he said. “There’s nothing like a wave to wash away your problems and clean out your mind.”

In Holly Beach, Mr. Charles disappeared for a decade. But in the summer of 2005, Hurricane Rita found him. He escaped just ahead of the storm, then later returned to find his house had washed away.

David Grunfeld / The Times-PicayuneBobby Charles on the grounds of his property outside Abbeville, La., in 2007. The reclusive songwriter preferred to live quietly, out of the limelight.He moved to a two-bedroom trailer amid the grand oaks of an eight acre property outside Abbeville. He kept his address and phone number secret, and cast a wary eye toward strangers and acquaintances alike.

“They all want to meet Bob Dylan or Willie Nelson. They say, ‘Man, I got a song for Bob Dylan.’ I think Bob Dylan writes most of his own. So does Willie. I don’t even sing any of mine to them.

“Some people have to depend on somebody else to make a living. And that gets tiresome, man, carrying a load like that. It gets to the point where you’re afraid to open your mouth in front of anybody.”

Despite being swindled out of some publishing rights and songwriting credits along the way, his annual royalties afforded him a comfortable living. When, for instance, Frogman Henry’s version of “But I Do” landed on the “Forrest Gump” soundtrack, Mr. Charles received a royalty check.

Mr. Charles was happiest in the studio. He often scheduled recording sessions to coincide with the full moon. "His approach was unorthodox," said Sonny Landreth, who often recorded with Mr. Charles at Dockside. "It wasn't like recording in Nashville, which is very organized, with musical charts."

Recent compositions occasionally contained ecological messages. The issue of clean water was especially important to him, Raphael said. "He'd call me up and say, 'I'm so mad about this, I had to write a song,'" Raphael said. "You'd listen to the song, and know he was mad as hell, but he always put a positive spin on it."

In 2003, Mr. Charles and Jim Bateman, his manager for the past three decades, gathered recordings spanning 20 years for the double-CD “Last Train to Memphis,” released via Charles’ own Rice ‘n Gravy Records. Guest musicians included Neil Young, Fats Domino, Willie Nelson, Delbert McClinton and Maria Muldaur.

Mr. Charles’ voice, graced with a slight, Randy Newman-esque drawl, remained strong in his later years, as did his gift for pairing lyrics and melody. He was due to release a new album, "Timeless," next month. Co-produced by Mr. Charles and Rebennack, it contains mostly new songs, and is dedicated to Domino. While recording, "he had lots of energy, and was very productive," Landreth said. Rebennack "had that affect on him."

Mr. Charles recently injured his back in a fall, but remained intensely focused on finishing "Timeless." "He kept saying, 'I've got to get this out. I want to hold it in my hands,'" Bateman said. "It's like he had a premonition."

Mr. Charles saw the final design for the album's artwork, but died weeks before its scheduled Feb. 23 release.

Had he lived, he was unlikely to hit the road to promote his new CD. In recent years, he tended to keep to himself. Most days, he ate alone at an Abbeville seafood joint where the waitress mixed his preferred cocktail -- a Grey Goose martini on the rocks -- as he parked his car.

“I don’t really have anybody,” Mr. Charles said in 2007. “I just don’t have a whole lot in common with the people I went to school with. I still love them as my friends, but I don’t have anything to say to ‘em. They wouldn’t believe half the (stuff) that happened to me anyway.

“But when I get around Mac Rebennack or Fats or somebody like that, then I’m in my world.”

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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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