Robben Ford Discussion

[JohnnyZ]

Eartha Kitt- one of those names "you've heard" but never really heard her sing. And, if you did, you probably weren't paying attention. Well, that's pretty much me. So, can anyone point me to some of her best music?! Thank you.

Actually, I do remember her in the Batman tv series...
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Soul on Eleven

[AndyR]

Actually, JZ, one of Kitt's best known songs is "Santa Baby", ironically enough, seeing how she died on Christmas Day.

Her Wiki entry is fairly in-depth:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eartha_Kitt



Andy

[frank0936]

Delaney Bramlett died Saturday from complications after gall bladder surgery.
Frank

[telefunk1]

yet another one...


David (Fathead) Newman, Saxophonist, Dies at 75
NYT
By BEN RATLIFF
Published: January 22, 2009
David (Fathead) Newman, a soft-spoken, sweet-toned jazz and rhythm-and-blues saxophonist who made his name in Ray Charles’s bands from the 1950s to the early ’70s, died on Tuesday in Kingston, N.Y. He was 75 and lived in Woodstock, N.Y.
The cause was pancreatic cancer, said his wife, Karen Newman.

Mr. Newman’s saxophone sound, pliant and restful but full of energy, was crucial to the Ray Charles sound, whether the setting was a big band or small combo.

On thousands of gigs with his taskmaster boss, Mr. Newman helped provide regular combustion points for concert audiences, like the pleading opening lines in “Night Time Is the Right Time” or his tenor saxophone battles with Don Wilkerson, whose approach was as gritty as Mr. Newman’s was precise.

Mr. Newman’s solos were among the defining features on many of Charles’s singles for the Atlantic label, like “Talkin’ ’Bout You” and “I Got a Woman.” In the late 1950s Charles helped establish Mr. Newman as a serious contemporary jazz bandleader in his own right, starting with the album “Fathead: Ray Charles Presents David Newman.”

That album was the first of many Mr. Newman made on his own for a number of labels, including Atlantic, Warner Brothers, Prestige and HighNote. He also recorded sessions with Aretha Franklin, Doug Sahm, Natalie Cole, B. B. King, Donny Hathaway and others. In 1990 he was nominated for a Grammy Award for his work with Art Blakey and Dr. John.

Born in Corsicana, Tex., and reared in Dallas, Mr. Newman learned alto saxophone at Lincoln High School. He also got his nickname there when an outraged music instructor used it as an epithet after catching Mr. Newman playing a Sousa march from memory rather than from reading the sheet music, which rested upside down on the stand. Musicians and audiences knew him as Fathead throughout his career. Ray Charles, however, preferred to call him Brains.

Mr. Newman attended Jarvis Christian College in Hawkins, Tex., for two years, studying theology while working in local bands. He then became a full-time member of the alto saxophonist Buster Smith’s group. Smith was a Texas musician prominent in the Southwest and Kansas City jazz scene of the 1920s and ’30s. He was later largely forgotten, but throughout his career Mr. Newman cited him as his prime influence.

Mr. Newman met Charles in 1951, when Charles was working with the singer and guitarist Lowell Fulson. They met again in 1954, in Los Angeles, and Charles hired Mr. Newman to play baritone saxophone. A year later Mr. Newman was switched to tenor; thereafter he alternated among tenor, baritone and alto, recording solos on all three. On his own records, from “Straight Ahead” (1962) to his last album, “Diamondhead” (2008), he also played flute.

Mr. Newman stayed with Charles until 1964, through success and a period in which both were addicted to heroin, then returned in 1970 and 1971. He also worked for 10 years with the flutist Herbie Mann, through the mid-1970s.

Mr. Newman had lived in Woodstock for the last 15 years. Besides his wife, who was also his manager, he is survived by four sons: Terry Walker of Las Vegas, Andre Newman of Falls Church, Va., and Cadino Newman and Benji Newman, both of Dallas; eight grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

“He was such a jewel,” the trumpeter Marcus Belgrave, a fellow member of the Ray Charles band, said of Mr. Newman on Thursday. “He had a rich heritage, and the different qualities in his playing, from Buster Smith to Dexter Gordon, gave him an identity of his own.”

[Bluelobster]

thanks for this telefunk
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http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_music.cfm?bandID=147748

[Daved]

Another personal aquaintance, Billy Powell, keyboardist and original Lynard Skynard member, is dead... passed away last night. I last saw him in Nashville at the BMI awards 2 months ago.
No cause of death has yet been given.
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B C-ing U!
( }:-Daved
"This boy's diseased with rhythm!" -Bing Crosby (Road To Rio, '49)

[frank0936]

I just read that a heart attack is suspected, but that no autopsy will be performed. He called 911 last night and said he was having trouble breathing. He was under a Dr.'s care for a heart condition. R.I.P.
Frank

[ZenOvertone]