SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Two Soylentils wrote in to pass on the news that Leonard Cohen had passed on...
Musician Leonard Cohen Dies
Canadian musician Leonard Cohen has died at age 82 at his home in Los Angeles, according to Rolling Stone . Another Rolling Stone article is a tribute to Cohen's work.
One of the more well known renditions of "Halllelujah" by Leonard Cohen is from the movie Shrek .
[Continues...]
Songwriter, Musician, and Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Famer Leon Russell Dead at 74
HuffPo reports
Russell's official website confirmed that the musician "passed away in his sleep" in Nashville on Sunday [November 13].
Though an official cause of death has not been released, Russell underwent surgery after suffering a heart attack this past July and was reportedly still in recovery, according to The Associated Press. In 2010, he was also treated for heart failure and underwent surgery for a brain fluid leak.
Songwriter and musician Leonard Cohen was suffering great pain from cancer and a spinal condition when he died November 7 at age 82.
For Baby Boomers who have memories linked to a particular song or concert, 2016 has been a sorrowful year with the loss of a significant number of music makers.
Some had long lives.
Toots Thielemans (94)
Kay Starr (94)
Kitty Kallen (94)
Sonny James (87)
Scotty Moore (84)
Gato Barbieri (83)
J.D. Loudermilk (82)
Jean Shepard (82)
Some got their three score and ten, but it seems too short a stay.
Merle Haggard (79)
Bobby Hutcherson (75)
Paul Kantner (74)
Guy Clark (74)
Otis Clay (73)
Bobby Vee (73)
Keith Emerson (71)
Some were simply cut down before their time.
David Bowie (69)
Glenn Frey (67)
Prince (57)
Candye Kane (54)
Does one of those mentioned stir you to prose or poetry?
Did I omit someone of note to you?
Previous: Merle Haggard Dies on His 79th Birthday
Jazz Master Bobby Hutcherson Dies at 75
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday November 14 2016, @01:21PM
Anyone up for a SN dead pool? Maybe too macabre.
Strange political observation: If Dad would have described the musician as a degenerate dirtbag or as a talentless slut, that pragmatically seems to cost a good 10, 20, 30, 40 years of lifespan.
Is anyone really surprised Amy Winehouse, Kurt "go bang" Cobain, Prince, Liberace, Scott Weiland, Micheal Jackson, Bowie all didn't make it to 94? Is anyone really surprised Merle Haggard made it to "older than Gandalf" age?
It would be fascinating to list a pile of musicians in order of age of death and then listen to some music selections and rank them in order of perceived degeneracy. I predict every point of degeneracy on a scale of 1 to 10 costs about 3 to 4 years of life.
It would have to be a large pile because of statistical outliers. There's always going to be people unlucky enough to try and take a midnight swim off a pier at low tide or their helicopter crashes because of bad luck (at least on the part of the musician) or WTF.
I'll toss out another interesting idea. Up to half a century ago, people didn't care what their musicians looked like any more than they cared what their plumber looked like, so there were some ugly SOBs up there screeching away. In the modern era especially for the more formulaic teeny bopper top 40 crap the primary hiring criteria is hotness and ability to lip sync and cooperate with the autotune soundboard engineers or whatever. Now do ugly people live longer or hotties? I think what we're seeing right now is some ugly SOBs are finally dying off the the same wall calendar time as the more recent hotties. Thats why musicians seem to be dropping like flies and the job title of "retired musician" seems to be disappearing. How this fits in with "degenerates die young" above is an interesting puzzle for the statisticians to puzzle out.
Essentially I'm arguing that pre-boomer musicians were selected for genetic ability to sing and boomer and post boomer musicians were selected for being politically correct nu-males or being girls with a nice rack. And those selection pressures give one population that lives until their 90s and is not unusually degenerate, while the other selection pressure means they mostly die by 60 after a long battle against Heroin, HIV, or both.
And a further interesting question, who makes better music to listen to, actual musicians pre-soundboard engineering era, or non-musicians with extensive soundboard manipulation... Herb Alpert or Jimi Hendrix... Hmm.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday November 14 2016, @05:45PM
I'm game. EthanolFueled dead before 40. MDC dead by 60, Buzzard, not sure how old he is, dead by 70. Me, (hopefully) dead by 50... wait who are we making a dead pool for?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 14 2016, @09:29PM
I always envisioned our hydroxyethane analog as just slightly younger than me to have accumulated such a vast collection of fascinating language. That would make him a zombie with those figures. Of course maybe he's a very precocious 12, who knows.
The way I've usually seen dead pools run is you write your name and a celebrity name on a dollar bill (in case you've ever wondered why you find dollar bills with a celebrity name and some rando written on them) and the data is tabulated and reported and the pot (as in pile of money...) is split between the folks selecting the first dead celebrity. I think this came out of a 70s cop movie or some ridiculous thing.
Mel Brooks and William Shatner are both pushing 90, good guesses. Hillary nearly died on campaign this summer. I suspect a lot of people in the Clinton campaign will suicide with like 5 shots to the back of the head as is usual for people connected to the Clintons. Bet Huma and/or Weiner don't make it to 2017. I'd put a buck on any of those.
Of course you gotta spec some terms, like nobody wins and it goes to the ACS or something (I guess in this kind of crowd we'd send it to the EFF?) and you gotta win before 2017 or 2018 or this month or whatever.
Yes truly this is a software component this site needs, automation for large scale bitcoin funded illegal gambling.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday November 15 2016, @01:39PM
Why didn't you say that in the first place! I'm game.