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INTRODUCTION
This is the Rest in Playlist for Friday, April 12th, 2024, featuring recording artists from around the world who passed away recently.
This week we’ve got an international trio of glam rock from America, Holland, and Canada on our Main Stage, as well as some American Ska to open up the show before we bring on our headliner, Michigan poet, activist, and musician John Sinclair. We’ve also got a show full of American musicians in the Jazz Cellar, and an International Stage featuring artists from England, The Netherlands, and New Zealand.
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:
[01 Apr 2024] Michael Ward, 57, American musician (The Wallflowers, School of Fish).
On April 1st, we lost Michael Ward, an American guitarist who won a Grammy Award for his work with Jakob Dylan and The Wallflowers. He also played with Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals, John Hiatt, Gavin DeGraw, and the Blind Boys of Alabama, with whom he won an NAACP Image Award. But he made his breakthrough in 1989 when he co-founded the Los Angeles alternative band School of Fish, which hit the rock charts in 1991 with this single, “3 Strange Days.”
School of Fish – 3 Strange Days
Headliner:
[02 Apr 2024] John Sinclair, 82, American poet, heart failure.
Our headliner was a giant in the world of marijuana legalization. John Sinclair, who died on April 2nd, was a counterculture publisher, a co-founder of the White Panther Party, a beat poet, and a musician who pioneered the nation’s first and still-recurring annual marijuana protest, Ann Arbor Hash Bash. But it was his marijuana bust in 1969, when he was given ten years for two joints, that garnered the world’s attention, inspiring John Lennon to write this eponymous tune, “John Sinclair.”
John Lennon – John Sinclair
Main Stage:
[05 Apr 2024] C. J. Snare, 64, American musician (FireHouse) and songwriter (“Love of a Lifetime“, “When I Look into Your Eyes“), cardiac arrest.
Our next band rode the wave of late 80s/early 90s hair metal to the top of the charts behind the crystalline vocals of our next artist, C.J. Snare, who died of a heart attack on April 5th while undergoing treatment for colon cancer. FireHouse formed in 1984 and was signed to Epic in 1989, then hit it big with five top 40 singles culminating in a Favorite New Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Artist Award at the 1992 AMAs. Here’s one of Snare’s compositions, the #5 smash, “Love of a Lifetime.”
FireHouse – Love Of A Lifetime
[09 Apr 2024] Max Werner, 70, Dutch singer and drummer (Kayak).
We back up a couple decades and cross the Atlantic to catch Max Werner, the lead singer and drummer for the Dutch progressive rock band Kayak. The group was active from 1972–1982, then reformed in 1999. Werner, who ascended on April 9th, also had a solo career during Kayak’s hiatus, scoring a #6 hit on the Dutch charts in 1981 called “Rain in May” that even made the American Hot 100. Two years earlier, Kayak hit #6 with this track, “Ruthless Queen.”
Kayak – Ruthless Queen
[05 Apr 2024] Rocket Norton, 73, Canadian drummer (Prism).
Back across the pond to Canada, where the Juno Awards’ 1981 Group of the Year has lost its drummer on April 5th. Rocket Norton co-founded the group in 1977, which had its greatest US success with 1981’s “Don’t Let Him Know.” But it’s this next song from 1977 that holds a place in our hearts, as it was the official wake-up song for the crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery at the International Space Station on its last mission. This is Prism with “Spaceship Superstar.”
Prism – Spaceship Superstar
The Jazz Cellar:
[03 Apr 2024] Albert Heath, 88, American jazz drummer (Heath Brothers), leukemia.
Albert “Tootie” Heath was the last surviving member of The Heath Brothers, a jazz trio consisting of Albert on drums, Percy on double bass, and Jimmy on tenor sax. Albert, the youngest brother, passed away on April 3rd, while Percy left us in 2005 and Jimmy in 2020. Albert was bestowed the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Jazz Foundation of America in 2018 and the NEA Jazz Master Award in 2021. Here are the Heath Brothers with “Tender Touch.”
The Heath Brothers – Tender Touch
[09 Apr 2024] Bob Lanese, 82, American trumpeter (James Last Orchestra).
Next up we have an American who made his jazz career in Germany. Bob Lanese, who died on April 9th, was born in Cleveland, but made his way to a military big band in the Vietnam War, then in 1971 landed a spot in the Glenn Miller Orchestra, touring Europe. There he played trumpet for a German big band before landing in the James Last Orchestra, the German band heard here playing “La Bamba.”
James Last Orchestra – La Bamba
[30 Mar 2024] Casey Benjamin, 45, American musician (Robert Glasper Experiment), producer, and songwriter.
Our youngest performer in the Reaper’s Rotation this week is Casey Benjamin, who met his maker on March 30th at the age of 45. Benjamin played sax (which he started at age 8), vocoder, and keyboards as a member of the Robert Glasper Experiment, which won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Album for Black Radio. He also worked with Victor Bailey, Kendrick Lamar, Nas, Q-Tip, Mos Def, Busta Rhymes, Heavy D, Wyclef Jean, Mary J. Blige, John Legend, and Beyonce. Here he is with Robert Glasper Experiment featuring Erykah Badu on “Afro Blue.”
Robert Glasper Experiment – Afro Blue (Feat. Erykah Badu)
International Stage:
[01 Apr 2024] Sue Chaloner [nl], 71, British-Dutch singer.
Sue Chaloner was a British-born singer who died on April 1st. Chaloner made her career debut as the lead in the English production of Hair, which she performed from 1969–1974. Then she formed the duo Spooky and Sue in Holland with Aruban Iwan Groeneveld. They performed together until 1976, when she went solo and finally had some moderate success in 1990. But she really hit her peak in 1974 when Spooky & Sue took this cover of a Bing Crosby classic to #2 on the Dutch charts, this is “Swinging on a Star.”
Spooky & Sue – Swinging On A Star
[29 Mar 2024] Gerry Conway, 76, English drummer and percussionist (Jethro Tull, Fairport Convention, Cat Stevens), complications from motor neurone disease.
Next up we have a drummer and percussionist who performed with Fairport Convention in the 90s and 2000s, with Jethro Tull in the 1980s, and with Cat Stevens in the 1970s. Gerry Conway died on March 29th and played with another dozen bands we don’t have time to mention. Stevens, now Yusuf Islam, wrote that “Sadly my great old drummer, Gerry Conway just passed away. What a lad, and what ingenuity and style.” Here they are together on “Another Saturday Night.”
Cat Stevens – Another Saturday Night
[26 Mar 2024] Clare Elliott, New Zealand singer (Suburban Reptiles).
Our final international artist hails from one of the first two punk bands formed in New Zealand in 1976, Suburban Reptiles. Clare Elliot, known onstage as “Sally Slag,” and later, “Zero” or “Zed,” sang for the group which took its inspiration from the Sex Pistols. Personnel difficulties and drug issues took the band down by late 1978. Elliott passed away on March 26th. Here are Suburban Reptiles with an answer for Cat Stevens called “Saturday Night Stay at Home.”
Suburban Reptiles – Saturday Night Stay At Home
Encore:
[02 Apr 2024] John Sinclair, 82, American poet, heart failure.
We bring back John Sinclair to close the show. He founded the nation’s oldest and still-recurring annual marijuana protest festival, the Ann Arbor Hash Bash, at which he was scheduled to speak, just four days before his death on April 2nd. But he did get to become the first legal purchaser of marijuana in Michigan after legalization in 2019, his lifelong dream realized. Here is John Sinclair & His Blues Scholars, featuring guitarist Wayne Kramer, with “Doctor Blues.”
John Sinclair & His Blues Scholars – Doctor Blues (feat. Wayne Kramer)
Closing:
And that’s the Rest in Playlist for Friday, April 12th, 2024. Join us here next week as we chronicle the latest musicians, singers, and songwriters to join the Great Gig in the Sky. 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.
