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INTRODUCTION
This is the Rest in Playlist for Friday, December 15th, 2023, featuring recording artists from around the world who passed away recently. We’re almost to the end of 2023, so look forward to our 2-Hour Year-End Special playing all New Year’s Eve weekend. This week, the Reaper’s keeping me busy with more new artists than I can fit in one show. Our headliner is a songwriter behind some of the biggest ballads of the 70s, we’ve got some 80s funk to kick things off, and our Main Stage features a trip back in time to some early pop favorites. We’re also visiting the Jazz Cellar, the Country Bunker, and the Mosh Pit. Get ready to expand your musical horizons on this global jam session from the great beyond. Let’s kick things off with our Opening Act.
Opening Act:
[08 Dec 2023] Nidra Beard, 71, American singer (Dynasty), cancer.
In the 1970s, there was a successful family funk band called the Sylvers, who hit with the tune “Boogie Fever.” Leon Sylvers III was also a producer who put together Dynasty in 1978, featuring vocalist Nidra Beard, who is our Opening Act this week, joining the Rest in Playlist on December 8th. She had been filling in on vocal work for The Sylvers and took Dynasty to #6 on the US R&B Charts in 1980 with this hit, “I’ve Just Begun to Love You.”
Dynasty – I’ve Just Begun To Love You
Headliner:
[11 Dec 2023] Richard Kerr, 78, English singer, songwriter (“Mandy”, “I’ll Never Love This Way Again”, “Looks Like We Made It”) and composer.
This week’s Headliner is an Englishman who wrote the songs for the guy who wrote the songs that made the whole world sing. Richard Kerr was a singer-songwriter who died on December 11th. He recorded much of his own material, but his songs were far bigger hits for other artists. This tune of Kerr’s first hit in the UK as “Brandy” by New Zealand’s Bunny Walters, but it was retitled when Barry Manilow hit #1 with it in the US, to avoid confusion with that Looking Glass hit about a fine girl. Here’s Richard Kerr’s version of “Mandy.”
Richard Kerr – Mandy
Main Stage:
[11 Dec 2023] Jeffrey Foskett, 67, American singer, songwriter, and producer (The Beach Boys), thyroid cancer.
Opening up the main stage we have a surf rocker from San José and Santa Barbara, California, who became known as the “vice principal” of the Beach Boys. Jeffrey Foskett joined the eternal tour on December 11th and was a touring and studio musician with Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys since the 1980s. In addition, Foskett toured and recorded with Paul McCartney, Jeff Beck, Roy Orbison, The Everly Brothers, Christopher Cross, Michael McDonald, Chicago, America, Heart, Roger McGuinn, Eric Carmen, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and Ringo Starr. Here’s his best-known solo material, a tune called “Wham Bam.”
Jeffrey Foskett – Wham Bam
[07 Dec 2023] Lola Dee, 95, American singer.
Our oldest performer this week is 95-year-old Lola Dee, who joined the choir invisible on December 7th. Born in 1928 as Lorraine DeAngelis, she began singing in amateur shows at age 9. At 14, she was recruited for a radio show hosted by Dick York (yes, the first Darrin on Bewitched). At 16, she signed her first record deal. Soon, she was touring the world with the likes of Bob Hope and Jimmy Durante. Here’s one of Lola Dee’s B-sides from 1955 at age 27, “Hey Ba Ba Re Bop.”
Lola Dee – Hey Ba Ba Re Bop
[04 Dec 2023] John Hyatt, 62–63, British singer (The Three Johns), cancer.
Closing the Main Stage, we have a band called The Three Johns, consisting of guys named Jon, John, and… Phillip? Anyway, we were joined by the John-with-an-h, John Hyatt, who sang for The Three Johns, on December 4th. They formed the band in 1981 for a concert coinciding with Lady Di’s wedding to Prince Charles but were too drunk to perform. But they got signed in 1982 and were a UK Indie hit for the rest of the 1980s. Here’s The Three Johns with “Death of the European.”
The Three Johns – Death Of The European
The Jazz Cellar:
[06 Dec 2023] Michel Sardaby, 88, French jazz pianist.
We begin with Michel Sardaby, a French jazz pianist who recorded from 1969 to 2014. Sardaby first moved to Paris in 1967 and was one of many musicians produced by Duke Ellington on an album meant to benefit Ellington’s longtime collaborator Billy Strayhorn’s medical costs. Here he is performing “Little Sister.”
Michel Sardaby – Little Sister
[24 Nov 2023] Jukka Haavisto, 93, Finnish musician.
Next up, we head to Finland, where Jukka Haavisto joined the Rest in Playlist on November 24th. He began playing swing music on the accordion at the age of 10 and played it and vibraphone publicly until illness forced his retirement in 2020. Haavisto also studied and had a career in advertising. Here he is on the track “Noora.”
Jukka Haavisto – Noora
[06 Dec 2023] Jimmy Villotti [it], 79, Italian musician.
One of the most versatile musicians on the Reaper’s Rotation comes to us from Italy on December 6th. Jimmy Villotti played guitar in 60s beat groups, then 70s prog rock groups, then collaborated with tango musicians in the 80s, before coming to his love of jazz in the 90s. Here he is with Massimo Masaò and Davide Palladin playing “Virus.”
Massimo Masaò, Davide Palladin, Jimmy Villotti – Virus
Country Bunker:
[22 Nov 2023] Jim Salestrom, 67, American singer-songwriter.
On November 22nd the Country Bunker welcomed Jim Salestrom, a singer and musician who had performed in Dolly Parton’s band from 1979 to 1991, and as a solo performer with dozens of albums to his credit. But his first breakthrough was founding the country-rock band Timberline in 1971 with his brother Chuck. From their debut album The Great Timber Rush, this is Timberline with “Timberline.”
Timberline – Timberline
[07 Dec 2023] Terry Baucom, 71, American bluegrass singer and banjo player (Russell Moore and IIIrd Tyme Out), Lewy body dementia.
We take a bluegrass turn with banjoist Terry Baucom aka “The Duke of Drive,” who joined the afterworld Opry on December 7th. At age 22, Baucom co-founded Boone Creek with the great Ricky Skaggs, then co-founded Quicksilver with Doyle Lawson two years later. But his greatest success was with the band he co-founded in 1991 with Russell Moore called IIIrd Tyme Out. Here they are with “Footprints in the Snow.”
IIIrd Tyme Out – Footprints In The Snow
[11 Dec 2023] Essra Mohawk, 75, American singer-songwriter (“Primordial Lovers”, “Change of Heart”).
Our final performer may not exactly be country, but I can’t leave 2023 without a tip of the scythe to Essra Mohawk, who died on December 11th. She was born Sandy Hurvitz, wrote songs for the Shangri-Las and Vanilla Fudge, dated Frank Zappa and performed with the Mothers of Invention, changed her name to Essra Mohawk, and recorded Primordial Lovers in 1970, called one of the best 25 albums ever made by Rolling Stone, and continued recording through 2009. But Gen-X kids like me know her best as one of the voices we heard every Saturday morning on Schoolhouse Rock!, teaching us about women’s suffrage and, in this tune, “Interjections!”
Essra Mohawk – Interjections!
Mosh Pit:
[29 Nov 2023] Scott Kempner, 69, American guitarist (The Dictators, The Del-Lords, The Brandos), complications from dementia.
On November 29th we lost one of the foundational guitarists of the New York punk scene, Scott Kempner. He founded The Dictators at age 16, and later founded The Del-Lords and performed with The Brandos. Variety magazine in 2008 called Kempner a “rare master at making three-chord rock ‘n’ roll.” Here is The Dictators with “Stay With Me.”
The Dictators – Stay With Me
[10 Dec 2023] Cayle Sain, 31, American drummer (Twitching Tongues).
Our youngest performer this week is 31-year-old Cayle Sain, drummer for the California metal band Twitching Tongues. Formed in 2009, Sain joined the group in 2015 and performed with them until his death this year. This is Twitching Tongues with “Harakiri.”
Twitching Tongues – Harakiri
Encore:
[11 Dec 2023] Richard Kerr, 78, English singer, songwriter (“Mandy”, “I’ll Never Love This Way Again”, “Looks Like We Made It”) and composer.
Time for an encore from singer-songwriter Richard Kerr. In addition to co-writing “Mandy”, “Looks Like We Made It”, and “Somewhere in the Night” for Barry Manilow, and other songs for Jennifer Warnes, Frankie Valli, Natalie Cole, John Denver, Rita Coolidge, Kenny Rogers, Bonnie Raitt, Peter Cetera, Roy Orbison, and many others, Kerr had a monster hit with Dionne Warwick, heard here in a re-recorded version that also features Gladys Knight, and yes, Warwick is 83 and Knight is 79 and very much still alive. This is “I’ll Never Love This Way Again.”`
Dionne Warwick – I Know, I’ll Never Love This Way Again (Feat. Gladys Knight)
Closing:
And that’s the Rest in Playlist for Friday, December 15th, 2023. Join us here next week for a tribute to the latest artists to cross over to eternity. Catch up on every year of Rest in Playlist back to 2016 on Spotify and RadicalRuss.com. For Rest in Playlist, I’m “Radical” Russ Belville reminding you to seize the day, it may be your last.
