Great musicians die all the time and rock nyc tends to pass on writing an obituary of way too many, so we are going to start a round up of passings so at least we can provide a wave goodbye before we move back to Chelsea Handler thinking Taylor Swift is a virgin and Billie Joe Armstrong now sober again. It was a bad week for Motown, what a strange coincidence about the two guys from the Temptations….
Kenny Ball – The UKs jazzman and trumpeter supremo who was an institute right through the 1960s and right through the rock and roll explosion, even garnering a # 2 hit in the States in 1961 with Kenny Ball And The Jazzman's cover of Cole Porter's "Samantha". Mainstream, easy listening jazz for the masses sure, but all swing all the time. He was 83
Alvin Lee – Lead singer for the blues rockers Ten Years After, Lee was immortalized in the hard rocking "I'm Going Home" in Woodstock, a highlight of epelipctic psychedelic blues out there mania that definined the vast majority of the bands that long weekend. He was 68.
Bobby Rogers was the tenor behind Smokey Robinson's falsetto in the Mircacles. Born in the same hospital on the same day as Smokey, they began singing together in Hospital and throughout the bands mindboggling career. Bobby was the tall guy with glasses. He was 73.
Richard Street And Damon Harris both of the Temptations, both singers, died within a week of each other. You may think you don't know these guys but they are the voices on "Papa Was A Rolling Stone".