Fran Warren auditioned to sing for the Duke Ellington Band when she was just sixteen years on. She didn't get the gig but she spent the next decades singing for some of the biggest swing bands in the country. And nailing down a handful of hits singles, including her signature tune "A Sunday Kind Of Love". She died recently at the age of 87.
Derek Watkins played the trumpet on every single 007 movie soundtrack from Dr. No to Skyfall which is a pretty good claim to fame by itself, but he was also a professional musician of the first repute who played with the big bands like Count Bassie and Oscar Peterson as well as classical orchestra and session work for the likes of Clapton. Cancer got him after a two year battle.
Risë Stevens was a Mezzo Soprano who began an opera career in Vienna before getting her big break in 1936 before coming back to the States where she played in quite a few movies. Her Carmen was definitive for a generation. Stevens died at the age of 99,
Deke Richards was a member of The Corporation, three songwriters signed to Motown and responsible for early Jackson 5 hits like "ABC" and "I Want You Back". Last year Richards produced the J5 official boot "Come And Get It: The Rare Pearls". An album I myself considered the best post-humus Michael Jackson album to date.He died on cancer ear;earlier this week at the age of 67.
Scott Hardkiss (aka Scott Freidel), a leader of the San Francisco house movement and member of the Hardkiss Brothers, was one of the top DJs and producers around. Dig out his extended remix of the Flaming Lips "Do You Realize??" Nobody is quite sure what happened but apparently it had something to do with a degenerative eye disease that was leaving him blind. he was sadly only 43 years old.