Pick a Day

Music History Events: Deaths

March 9, 2007 Boston lead singer Brad Delp commits suicide at age 55.

February 23, 2007 Rockabilly singer Donnie Brooks dies at age 71.

February 6, 2007 Frankie Laine dies at age 93.

February 2, 2007 The Spinners founding member Billy Henderson dies of complications from diabetes at age 67 in Daytona Beach, Florida.

February 2, 2007 Joe Hunter, who played piano in the Motown house band The Funk Brothers, dies at age 79.

February 1, 2007 Italian-American composer Gian Carlo Menotti, who twice won the Pulitzer Prize for the '50s operas The Consul and The Saint of Bleecker Street, dies at age 95.

January 23, 2007 David "Disco D" Shayman, a hip-hop record producer and composer who rose to prominence with 50 Cent's "Ski Mask Way," commits suicide at age 26.

January 19, 2007 Denny Doherty of The Mamas & The Papas dies of kidney failure at age 66 after surgery for a stomach aneurysm.

January 6, 2007 "Sneaky Pete" Kleinow (pedal steel guitarist for The Flying Burrito Brothers), suffering from Alzheimer's, dies in Petaluma, California, at age 72.

January 1, 2007 Country singer Del Reeves - known for the 1965 novelty hit "Girl on the Billboard," among others - dies of emphysema at age 74.

December 25, 2006 James Brown, age 73, dies of congestive heart failure resulting from complications of pneumonia.

December 23, 2006 English entertainer Charlie Drake dies in Twickenham, Middlesex, England, after suffering multiple strokes at age 81.

December 17, 2006 Denis Peyton (saxophonist, guitarist for The Dave Clark Five) dies of cancer at age 63.

December 2, 2006 Glam rocker Dave Mount (drummer for Mud) dies at age 59.

November 27, 2006 Alan Leslie "Fluff" Freeman, longtime Pick of the Pops host in the UK, dies at age 79.

November 26, 2006 Tony "Panama" Silvester (of The Main Ingredient) dies after a six-year battle with cancer (multiple myeloma) at age 65.

November 26, 2006 Raul Velasco, longtime host and producer of the Mexican variety show Siempre en Domingo (Always On Sunday), dies of complications of Hepatitis C at age 73.

November 25, 2006 Mexican banda music singer Valentin Elizalde is gunned down in his car after a concert performance, presumably by a gang of drug traffickers, at age 27. Elizalde often sang narcocorridos, "drug ballads" that have been compared to gangster rap.

November 23, 2006 Jazz singer Anita O'Day dies of a cardiac arrest at age 87.

November 17, 2006 R&B singer Ruth Brown dies after suffering a heart attack and stroke at age 78. Known for '50s hits like "So Long," "Teardrops From My Eyes," and "(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean."

November 10, 2006 R&B singer-songwriter Gerald Levert, age 40, dies of acute intoxication after taking various prescription painkillers combined with Xanax and antihistamines. The death is ruled accidental.

November 3, 2006 French orchestra leader Paul Mauriat, known for a hit 1968 cover of Andre Popp's "Love Is Blue," dies at age 81.

October 29, 2006 Billboard executive Tom Noonan, who helped launch the Billboard Hot 100 during his 30-year tenure, dies of bladder cancer at age 78.

October 28, 2006 Producer Rudy Taylor, music arranger for Bobby Womack, dies in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, at age 52. Among others, co-wrote The Gap Band hits "Oops Upside Your Head," "You Dropped A Bomb On Me" and "Early In The Morning."

October 22, 2006 Gerald Cook, pianist with the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, dies in Chicago, Illinois, at age 85.

October 21, 2006 Sandy West (drummer for The Runaways) dies of lung and brain cancer at age 47.

October 14, 2006 Country/rock singer and guitarist Freddy Fender dies of lung cancer in Corpus Christi, Texas, at age 69.

September 19, 2006 Saxophonist Danny Flores (writer of The Champs' "Tequila") dies of complications from pneumonia at age 77.

September 17, 2006 Rock guitarist Al Casey dies at age 69 in Phoenix, Arizona. Often worked with Lee Hazlewood ("The Fool," "Surfin' Hootenanny") and Duane Eddy (for whom he wrote the early hit "Ramrod").

August 29, 2006 Rockabilly singer/songwriter Jumpin' Gene Simmons dies after a long illness in Tupelo, Mississippi, at age 73.