Pernell Roberts born 18 May 1928

Pernell Elven Roberts Jr. (May 18, 1928 – January 24, 2010) was an American stage, film, and television actor, activist, and singer. In addition to guest-starring in over 60 television series, he was best known for his roles as Ben Cartwright's eldest son Adam Cartwright on the Western television series Bonanza (1959–1965), and as chief surgeon John McIntyre, the title character on Trapper John, M.D. (1979–1986).

Roberts was born in Waycross, Georgia, and showed an early singing talent while still at high school. He attended both Georgia Tech and the University of Maryland, but dropped out of both before joining the Marine Corps for two years. After a series of odd jobs, he started to get some stage work in the early 1950s. This gave Roberts a background in the classics, especially as a member of the Arena Stage Company in Washington, DC, where he played Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew, and appeared in The Playboy of the Western World, The Glass Menagerie, The Importance of Being Earnest and Twelfth Night.

Among his Broadway appearances were his reprise of Petruchio, opposite Nina Foch as Katarina (1957), and, in the same year, in a role that suited his serious nature, Daniel de Borsola, the murderous malcontented Gentleman of the Horse to Jacqueline Brookes in the title role of The Duchess of Malfi. Leaving the classics behind him, Roberts headed for Los Angeles in 1958, where he got supporting roles in three quality films, the first being a rather theatrical adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms (1958). Ironically, in retrospect, Roberts portrayed one of three sons of Ephraim Cabot (Burl Ives), the unbending Puritan patriarch farmer. The "60 acres of dirt" farm was not exactly the Ponderosa, but there were echoes of Bonanza. Roberts, who lustily played the loutish Peter Cabot, unlike the more gentlemanly Adam Cartwright, had the temerity, on his first Hollywood film, to complain about the way Anthony Perkins, already a major star, kept holding up the shoot by continually asking Method-driven questions.

                                   

Roberts, who had no truck with the Method, then appeared in two westerns, The Sheepman (1958), as a villain who tangles with Glenn Ford, and Budd Boetticher's Ride Lonesome (1959), as Randolph Scott's outlaw sidekick. From there, he immediately went into Bonanza, joining "Hoss" (Dan Blocker) and "Little Joe" (Michael Landon) as sons of the thrice-widowed, cruel-to-be-kind Ben Cartwright (Lorne Greene, 13 years Roberts's senior). At one stage in the series, the all-male family was temporarily threatened by giving Adam a fiancée, but when the producers were overwhelmed with protests from (mostly) female fans, they dropped the idea of marriage. 

Roberts, played Adam Cartwright in Bonanza for 202 episodes from 1959 until 1965, but thought himself capable of far greater things and chafed at the limitations he felt his "Bonanza" character was given. Roberts agreed to fulfil his six-year contract but refused to extend it, and when he left the series in 1965, at the height of his, and the show's, popularity. his character was eliminated with the explanation that he had simply moved away.

In 1963, during his Bonanza years, he recorded Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies, a folk music album, which AllMusic calls "...the softer, lyrical side of folk music — pleasant and not challenging, but quite rewarding in its unassuming way." The album, was released by RCA Victor and arranged by Dick Rosmini. When Roberts left Bonanza, the general feeling in Hollywood was that he had foolishly doomed his career and turned his back on a fortune in "Bonanza" earnings. During the 60's Roberts was an outspoken supporter of civil rights – he took part in demonstrations and campaigned against racism and sexism, especially on television.

Pernell in Gunsmoke

Indeed, for the next 14 years, apart from a few minor feature films, Roberts spent much of the rest of his career in television, making dozens of guest appearances in series such as Gunsmoke, The Big Valley and Mission: Impossible. In between, he used his powerful singing voice in touring musicals including Camelot and The King and I, and starred opposite Ingrid Bergman on Broadway in the title role in Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1972). His TV credits during that time included "The Virginian," ''Hawaii Five-O," ''Mission Impossible," ''Marcus Welby, M.D.," ''Banacek," ''Ironside" and "Mannix."

Then, in 1979, he landed another series, "Trapper John, M.D.," in which he played the title role. In "Trapper John, M.D.," the Korean War was nearly 30 years past and Roberts' character was now a balding, middle-aged chief of surgery at San Francisco Memorial Hospital. He no longer fought the establishment, having learned how to deal with it with patience and wry humour. The series, praised for its serious treatment of the surgical world, aired until 1986. Rogers had left that series after just three seasons. Roberts' other venture into series TV was "FBI: The Untold Stories" (1991-1993), in which he acted as host and narrator. He made his last TV appearance in 1997 on an episode of Diagnosis: Murder, updating a Mannix character he had portrayed decades before.

Roberts married four times, first in 1951 to Vera Mowry — a professor of theatre history at Washington State University and subsequently Hunter College, as well as professor emerita of the PhD program in theatre at City University of New York, with whom he had his only child. Roberts and his first wife later divorced. His son died in a motorcycle accident in 1989. Roberts married Judith Anna LeBrecque on October 15, 1962; they divorced in 1971. He subsequently married Kara Knack in 1972, divorcing in 1996. At the time of his death Roberts was married to Eleanor Criswell.

When the 21st century arrived, Roberts appeared to retire altogether from screen acting. His name and image, however, were frequently referenced in tributes and reports on "Bonanza," which fixated with some degree on the fact that at the time he was the last surviving member of the original cast. Sadly, he passed away from pancreatic cancer at age 81 in Malibu, CA., on January 24, 2010.

(Edited from Wikipedia, Legacy, TV Insider & The Guardian)

Here's a clip of Pernell Roberts and Hoyt Axton singing Endless Road on Bonanza.

 

Pervis Jackson born 17 May 1938

Pervis Jackson (May 17, 1938 – August 18, 2008) was an American R&B singer, noted as the bass singer for The Spinners, and was one of the group's original members as well as their spokesman. He was a member of the Spinners from its formation in 1954 until his death in August 2008.

The fine art of blending vocals in a group is one that was beautifully exemplified by the line-up of the Detroit Spinners. The group's foundation was the bass singing of Pervis Jackson, to which was added Henry Fambrough's baritone and the tenor voices of Bobbie Smith and Billy Henderson. These four were the group's mainstays, but additional fifth members who came and went included Philippe Wynne, whose distinctive falsetto and high tenor graced several hits between 1972 and 1977. 

Known simply as the Spinners in the US, where there was little chance of their being mistaken for the Liverpudlian folk group of the same name, they spanned the doo-wop, rhythm'n'blues, soul, funk and disco eras and recorded both for Motown in Detroit in the 1960s and for Atlantic in the 1970s, working under the auspices of the producer Thom Bell at Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia. Jackson's distinctive deep tones came to the fore on "Working My Way Back To You", their 1980 UK chart-topper – he's the one booming "Been prayin' every day" – and on "They Just Can't Stop It (Games People Play)", one of the group's 10 US Top 20 hits.

                                     

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Jackson moved to Ferndale, a small town just outside Detroit, when he was seven and met most of the future Spinners at Lincoln High School. Originally called the Domingoes, they renamed themselves after a brand of hubcaps and were mentored by Harvey Fuqua of the Moonglows, who sang on their first US hit, the doo-wop ballad "That's What Girls are Made For", and its soulful follow-up, "Love (I'm So Glad) I Found You" in 1961. Fuqua was dating and subsequently married Gwen Gordy, sister of the Motown founder Berry Gordy, and brought his Tri-Phi label under the company's umbrella. Still, the Spinners languished in development hell, only releasing half a dozen singles on Motown and its V.I.P. subsidiary over the next six years. Jackson often worked in the office of the Detroit company, sending out records to stores and DJs. In 1970, the group finally scored another US hit with "It's A Shame", written and produced by Stevie Wonder, and made their chart début in the UK where they were briefly known as the Motown Spinners.

On the advice of their friend Aretha Franklin, they finally left Motown for Atlantic, though they were no higher up the pecking order there until Bell, who had made his name producing the lush, symphonic Philly soul of the Delfonics and the Stylistics, opted to work with them and co-wrote "I'll Be Around" in 1972. Bell had been determined to showcase Jackson in 1975. "Basses are not usually designed to do anything but hold the root, in order to hold it all together. They're not really known for being soloists," recalled the producer. "So I said I'm going to come up with something for that guy. And from the moment I gave him that part, his whole personality changed. He's known for that one thing, but that one thing changed his life: 12.45," said Bell, refering to the lyric that became Jackson's nickname. Indeed, Jackson singing that signature line – "12.45" – on "They Just Can't Stop It (The Games People Play)" always brought the house down wherever the Spinners performed.

Between "Could It Be I'm Falling In Love" in 1973 and the "Cupid/I've Loved You For A Long Time" medley in 1980, the Spinners were a constant fixture on the US and British charts and regulars on Top of the Pops and Soul Train, their matching suits and dance routines on "The Rubberband Man" (1976) and "Working My Way Back To You" as endearing as their vocal harmonies have proved enduring. The group's cover of the Four Seasons' "Working My Way Back To You" held a special meaning for Jackson who was married for 40 years but had long spells away from his wife and family. The Spinners also toured with Dionne Warwick and duetted with her on "Then Came You", a US number one in 1974.

By the mid-1980s, Jackson and the group were playing "oldies" concerts with such groups as the Four Seasons and the Righteous Brothers. The final album for Atlantic was Cross Fire, in 1984, although the group was featured in the record company's 40th anniversary concert in New York in 1988. A big man with a big heart, who took special care of his autistic son, Jackson never considered retirement. He appeared with the Spinners as recently as July 2008 and was diagnosed with brain and liver cancer only a few days before his death at the age of 70, in Detroit, Michigan, on August 18, 2008.He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery on the city's North side. He was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2023 as a member of the Spinners.

(Edited from obit by Pierre Perrone @ The Independent, Wikipedia & The Guardian) 

Mark Fosson born 16 May 1950

                                                   

Mark Steed Fosson (May 16, 1950 – November 2, 2018) was an American singer-songwriter and American primitive guitarist who grew up in Ashland, Kentucky, where he began writing songs while he was still in his early teens. He got his start in the mid to late 1960s, playing in local rock bands until going into service with the Air Force in 1971, and returning home around 1974.

Mark was a native Kentuckian, and his playing on six- and twelve-string guitars and banjo communicated a deep and soulful connection with the traditional music of the region. From an early age, he was involved with music, writing songs as a teenager and bringing his playing to a virtuoso level.In the late seventies, Fosson sent a number of demos to Fahey’s West-Coast label Takoma. Fahey was impressed with what he heard and offered Fosson a recording deal. In turn, Fosson moved from his Kentucky home to Los Angeles and embarked on a number of recordings with Fahey. Due to great misfortune, however, the Takoma Records label (in financial difficulty) would shortly fold. Crucially, though, Fahey would let Fosson keep possession of those prized master tapes of the sessions. They were found in his garage many years later by his niece, Tiffany Anders.

                   Here's "Once Was A Time" from above album.

                                    

Now located on the West Coast, Fosson met fellow songwriter Edward Tree, and the two began working together, forming the Bum Steers, a country-tinged group, in the late 1980s, eventually being invited to play the Grand Ole Opry at the request of Porter Wagoner. Fosson's material appeared on several soundtracks through the 1990s. In 2001, he began collaborating with singer-songwriter Lisa O'Kane, who recorded several of his songs, including the No. 1 European single "Little Black Cloud." Music in this vein was released on his album Jesus On a Greyhound in 2006.

It was those treasured sessions with Fahey that proved most sought-after, however, and in 2006 (some thirty years later) Chicago based Drag City Records would finally release “The Lost Takoma Sessions”. The record drew positive reviews and Fosson was frequently compared to Americana music artists such as Ramblin' Jack Elliot, Joe Ely, John Prine and Guy Clark. The years had only increased the profound impact of Mark's playing, and he was soon seen as a vital member of the late 20th century's American Primitive movement.

On June 26, 2012, Tompkins Square released Digging In The Dust, a collection of early home recordings which led to Fosson's signing to Takoma Records. The eleven tracks present in the album were the unaltered, original recordings, the versions Fosson himself hoped would someday see the light of day. In May 2015, through Bandcamp, he released kY, a collection of instrumentals inspired by his time growing up in Kentucky and, in July 2017, his final album, Solo Guitar was released on Drag City Records. 

In August that year Fosson came to Chicago to play at the Million Tongues Festival. Mark had already been ill, but he carried himself cheerfully, laughing easily and playing like an absolute master.

On November 2, 2018, Fosson died of cancer in Catonsville, Maryland.

(Edited from Wikipedia, Fractured Air & Drag City)

Edmond Hall born 15 May 1905

Edmond Hall (May 15, 1901 – February 11, 1967) was an American jazz clarinetist and bandleader. Over his career, Hall worked extensively with many leading performers as both a sideman and bandleader and is possibly best known for the 1941 chamber jazz song "Profoundly Blue".

Born in Reserve, Louisiana, United States, about 40 miles west of New Orleans on the Mississippi River, Hall and his siblings were born into a musical family. Hall worked as a farmhand, but by 1919 he had become tired of the hard work and left for New Orleans. The first New Orleans band he played with was that of Bud Rousell (Bud Russell). He also played with Jack Carey (trombone) and blues cornetist Chris Kelley. In 1920, he went to a dance at Economy Hall in New Orleans where Buddy Petit was playing. Petit needed a replacement on clarinet, and he hired Hall. After two years, he moved to Pensacola, Florida, and joined Lee Collins's band, followed by Mack Thomas, and the Pensacola Jazzers. He met trumpeter Cootie Williams and, with Williams, he joined the Alonzo Ross DeLuxe Syncopators.

Hall moved to New York City in 1928, and was a member of the Claude Hopkins orchestra until 1935. Hall had been featured on alto and baritone saxophone since 1922. When he joined Billy Hicks's band, the Sizzling Six, he had a position as a full-time clarinetist. On June 15, 1937, he had his first recording session with Billie Holiday, accompanied by Lester Young on tenor saxophone. In 1940, Henry "Red" Allen arrived at the Café Society, and Hall became the band's clarinetist. Hall spent nine years at the Café Society, playing and recording in between jobs with many of his contemporaries. He recorded for the first time as a leader in February 1941. Later that year Hall left Allen to join Teddy Wilson, who also played at the Café Society. Around this time Hall's style changed. His admiration for Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw caused him to work on his technique. Hall tried a Boehm system clarinet, but that attempt was short-lived. He soon went back to his beloved Albert System clarinet, which he played until he died.

                                    

During this period, he made many recordings as Edmond Hall's Blue Note Jazzmen, the Edmond Hall Sextet, the Edmond Hall Celeste Quartet, Edmond Hall's Star Quintet, Ed Hall and the Big City Jazzmen, and Edmond Hall's Swingtet. The recording sessions always took place between the work hours of the Café Society and included many of the musicians who performed there. Hall was frequently invited to the Town Hall concerts led by Eddie Condon. In 1944, Teddy Wilson formed a trio, while the other band members remained at Café Society. Hall became a bandleader after being asked by Barney Josephson, owner of Café Society. He recorded for Blue Note and Commodore. In an Esquire magazine poll, he was voted the second-best clarinet player, behind the clarinetist he admired most, Benny Goodman.

Edmond Hall Celeste Quartet

In the mid-1940s, Barney Josephson sought new musicians to play Café Society. In June 1947, Hall left the club. Early in 1947 Louis Armstrong's appearance at Carnegie Hall was announced. Hall and his small combo were picked to accompany Armstrong during half of the program. As a result of this concert, Armstrong would abandon his big band and switch a small combo, the All Stars. In September 1947, Hall joined the All-Star Stompers with Wild Bill Davison, Ralph Sutton and Baby Dodds. Meanwhile, Barney Josephson again asked Hall to return to Uptown Café Society with a new band. Business worsened, however, and Josephson closed Uptown in December 1947. Hall took his men back to Downtown Café Society but, in June 1948, Hall's band was replaced with the Dave Martin Trio.

Mary Lou Williams and Hall 1946

In late 1948, Hall took a job at Boston's Savoy Cafe, playing with members of Bob Wilber's band. He also promoted a concert with George Wein. Steve Connolly of the Savoy Cafe asked Hall to bring his own band and replace Bob Wilber. Hall's band, the Edmond Hall All-Stars, began playing the Savoy on April 4, 1949. Hall left the Savoy in early March 1950 to return to New York. He played clubs and festivals, including one job in San Francisco. Eddie Condon called Hall in San Francisco, asking him to join his band at Eddie Condon's. Hall stayed with Condon, playing other jobs as well, mostly with members from Condon's band. An example was the Annual Steamboat Ball in June 1951 and the frequent sessions for the Dr. Jazz broadcasts during 1952. Condon's band recorded many sessions during Hall's engagement. In November 1952, Hall participated in a special concert, "Hot Versus Cool," which pitted New Orleans-style jazz against bop. The album received a top rating of five stars in DownBeat magazine.

Hall in Ghana

During 1954, Hall played with Ralph Sutton, Mel Powell, and Jack Teagarden. At the end of 1955, Hall left Condon to appear as a guest musician on the Teddy Wilson show. He then replaced Barney Bigard in the Louis Armstrong band, which toured Europe and Sweden. After tours in Australia and England, the band visited Ghana, Africa, where it played for its largest audience, 11,000 at the first concert.

Tired of touring, Hall left the All-Stars and took a vacation in California. After his vacation, he performed with old friends Eddie Condon, Ralph Sutton, Teddy Wilson, Red Allen, and J. C. Higginbotham. Hall was invited to play with bands in Toronto, then returned to Chicago for an engagement at the Jazz, Ltd. club. At the end of 1958, he entered the studio to record Petit Fleur with his sextet, including friends from Cafe Society such as Vic Dickenson. From then on he played as a freelance musician.

Hall flew to Copenhagen in 1961 to perform as a guest with Papa Bue's Viking Jazz Band. Returning home, he assembled the Hall American Jazz Stars and played at Condon's in New York City. During the early 1960s, he worked often, touring with Yves Montand and Chris Barber, and recording with Leonard Gaskin, Marlowe Morris, and the Dukes of Dixieland. In 1964, Hall and his wife, Winnie, settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts. George Wein assembled a package of bands, and Hall was the featured star with the Dukes of Dixieland, who toured Japan in July 1964. He played at the Carnegie Hall Salute to Eddie Condon and appeared at jazz festivals, often with his friend Vic Dickenson. For a few months, he played regularly at the Monticello restaurant, often in front of little or no audience as jazz was less popular.By then Hall was semi-retired, but a break came in November 1966, when plans for a European tour were made. Hall was to play with Alan Elsdon's band during the tour, which began in England and extended to Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. Hall returned to Denmark to record for Storyville at the Rosenberg Studio in Copenhangen.

Hall was back home for Christmas. In January 1967, there was another important engagement, John Hammond's 30th Anniversary Concert – Spirituals to Swing at Carnegie Hall in New York. Hall was invited as he belonged the Café Society Band, which was featured at the concert. The next important concert was the Second Annual Boston Globe Jazz Festival on January 21, 1967. On February 3, 1967, Hall played at the Governor Dummer Academy with George Poor's band as a featured performer with Bobby Hackett. This was his last recording as he died nine days later of a heart attack while shovelling snow in front of his home in Boston on February 12, 1967, at the age of 65.

(Edited from Wikipedia & Syncopated Times)

There's not many video recordings of the All Stars with Edmund Hall on clarinet. This is a clip from a broadcast that Louis Armstrong did for the second Timex Jazz Show done in April 1958.

 

Johnnie Wright born 13 May 1914

Johnnie Wright (May 13, 1914 – September 27, 2011) was an American country music singer-songwriter and bandleader, best known as one half of the influential duo Johnnie & Jack with Jack Anglin and for managing the career of his wife, Kitty Wells, the first female country artist to top the charts with "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" in 1952. In hit recordings such as Poison Love, Cryin' Heart Blues and Goodnight, Sweetheart, Goodnight, Johnnie & Jack spiced country music's plain cooking with exotic dashes of Latin American music and black doo‑wop vocalising, yet for a decade they were valued cast members of the conservative Grand Ole Opry.

Wright was born into a farming family in the small town of Mount Juliet, east of Nashville. By his early 20s he was singing on one of the city's radio stations, WSIX, with The Harmony Girls - his sister Louise Wright and his new wife, Muriel Deason, for whom he had suggested the stage name Kitty Wells, drawn from the title of an old song. In 1938 he met Anglin, who had been working in a trio with his brothers Jim and Red, and who soon afterwards married Louise Wright. This close-knit group spent the next five years on various south-eastern radio stations before Anglin was drafted into the military in 1943. Re-forming in 1946, Johnnie & Jack recorded for the King and Apollo labels and had a brief spell on the Grand Ole Opry before moving to a rival station, KWKH in Shreveport, Louisiana, where they participated in the first broadcast, in April 1948, of the Louisiana Hayride, a show that would prove hugely popular for many years.

                                     

The following year they signed with RCA-Victor, having been recommended by the guitarist Chet Atkins, who had played the fiddle in their band briefly in the mid-1940s. In 1951 came the chart success of Poison Love and Cryin' Heart Blues, with their rumba rhythm emphasised by maracas. There was a similar Latin touch to Ashes of Love, written by them and Jack's brother Jim. RCA issued it as a B-side, but it has since become a country and bluegrass standard. In 1952 they were invited back to the Grand Ole Opry, this time to stay.

Johnnie & Jack took an even more innovative step when they decided, in 1954, to adapt songs from the R&B chart: first the Four Knights' (Oh Baby Mine) I Get So Lonely, which they took to No 1 in the country chart, then the Spaniels' Goodnight, Sweetheart, Goodnight, a remarkable mélange of strident hillbilly harmony, steel guitar and a booming bass part, sung by Culley Holt from what would become Elvis Presley's favourite backing group, the Jordanaires. Within a year or two, however, Presley and his kind were pushing country acts down the bill, and by the end of the 50s Johnnie & Jack were simply Opry regulars with an occasional minor hit record, such as Stop the World (and Let Me Off) in 1958 and the folky Sailor Man (1959), which borrowed its martial drumbeat from Johnny Horton's recent huge hit The Battle of New Orleans.

Then, in 1963, driving to attend a memorial service for Patsy Cline, Hawkshaw Hawkins and Cowboy Copas, country stars who had died in a plane crash, Anglin was killed in a car accident. Wright continued to perform and record with their band, the Tennessee Mountain Boys, as Johnny Wright, and in 1965 had a country No 1 with Hello Vietnam. In 1968, he and Wells recorded an autobiographical duet, "We'll Stick Together", and in the 1970s had their own TV show. Between 1983 and 2000 they ran their Family Country Junction museum and studio in Madison, Tennessee, where they had settled. 

Wright joined producers Randall Franks and Alan Autry for the 1991 CD Christmas Time's A Comin' featuring the cast of the TV series, In the Heat of the Night. He performed along with Kitty Wells and Bobby Wright on "Jingle Bells", with the rest of the cast.  After several years' retirement, in 1992 they resumed playing, joined by their son Bobby, who, like their daughters Carol Sue and Ruby, had some minor-league success as a country singer.

On December 31, 2000, the duo performed their farewell concert at the Nashville Nightlife Theater in Nashville, Tennessee. They played to a full house of fans, family and friends that included Ricky Skaggs, The Whites, Marty Stuart, Connie Smith, Leona Williams, Tommy Cash, Jack Greene, Jean Shepard and comedian-impressionist, Johnny Counterfit.

Johnnie Wright died at his home of natural causes in Madison, Tennessee on September 27, 2011, exactly two years after older daughter Ruby's death; 33 days short of his 74th wedding anniversary with Wells; and on the same day as fellow country singer-songwriter "Country" Johnny Mathis. Wright had been in failing health for some time. Wright's widow Kitty Wells followed him in death less than ten months later on July 16, 2012. He is interred at Spring Hill Cemetery in Nashville, Tennessee. Johnnie & Jack were posthumously inducted into the Volunteer State Music Hall of Fame in 2025.

(Edited from Tony Russell obit @ the Guardian & Grokipedia) 

Ian McLagan born 12 May 1945

Ian  McLagan (12 May 1945 – 3 December 2014) was an English keyboardist, best known as a member of the rock bands Small Faces and Faces. He also collaborated with the Rolling Stones and led his own band from the late 1970s. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012.

Ian Patrick McLagan was born at West Middlesex Hospital, Isleworth, to Alec William McLagan, of Scottish descent, and Susan (née Young), from Mountrath, County Laois. He had an elder brother, Mike. The McLagan family lived in Hounslow, West London. Alec McLagan was an enthusiastic amateur skater, having been British speed-skating champion in 1928; a photograph of him in this role features on the cover of his son's solo album, Best of British (2000). Ian first started playing keyboards at the age of seven after his mother purchased an upright piano; one of his first appearances was in a group entitled 'the Blue Men' in which he played rhythm guitar. McLagan was educated at Spring Grove Grammar School, Isleworth, and the Twickenham College of Technology and School of Art. He quit his study of art to focus on music.

The Small Faces

McLagan first started playing in bands in the early 1960s, initially using the Hohner Cembalet before switching to the Hammond organ and Wurlitzer electric piano, as well as occasionally playing guitar. He was influenced by Cyril Davies' All Stars, and his first professional group was the Muleskinners, followed by the Boz People with future King Crimson and Bad Company member Boz Burrell. In 1965, he was hired, for the sum of £30 a week, to join Small Faces by their manager, Don Arden, replacing Jimmy Winston. McLagan played his debut gig with them at London's Lyceum Theatre on 2 November that year.  Once the 'probation' period ended, McLagan's pay was reduced (at his request) to £20 a week, which was what the other band members were getting. 

                                     

Don Arden managed the group's finances, paying them all a weekly salary until 1967 when payment was changed to royalties. With the band, he wrote and sang only two songs which are credited entirely to him, "Up the Wooden Hills to Bedfordshire" and "Long Agos and Worlds Apart", which appear on Small Faces and Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake respectively. However, he is also credited as a co-writer on several other tracks such as "Own Up Time", "Eddie's Dreaming" and "The Hungry Intruder". In 1969, Steve Marriott left the group; Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood joined, and the band changed its name to Faces.

The Faces

McLagan played piano on the studio side of the 1972 album The London Chuck Berry Sessions. After the Faces split up in 1975, McLagan worked as a sideman for the Rolling Stones, both in the studio (Some Girls including electric piano on "Miss You"), on tour and on various Ronnie Wood projects, including the New Barbarians. In addition, his session work has backed such artists as Arc Angels, Chuck Berry, Jackson Browne, Joe Cocker, Bob Dylan, James McMurtry, Melissa Etheridge, Bonnie Raitt, Sid Griffin, Paul Westerberg, Izzy Stradlin, John Hiatt, Frank Black, Nikki Sudden, John Mayer, Bruce Springsteen, Tony Scalzo, Carla Olson, Mick Taylor, and The Georgia Satellites. McLagan also released several solo albums. An in-demand player, he filled the role of bandleader with his own Bump Band from 1977 onwards.

McLagan played keyboards in the band that backed Bob Dylan on his 1984 joint European tour with Santana. Also playing in that band were Mick Taylor, Colin Allen and Gregg Sutton. He was a member of Billy Bragg's band "The Blokes" for several years in the late 1990s and early 2000s, co-writing and performing on the 2002 England, Half-English album and tour. He played Hammond B3 organ on Mary Gauthier's 2005 album, Mercy Now. In 2009, McLagan joined the James McMurtry band on tour in Europe. On 25 September 2010, at Stubbs in Austin, Texas, McLagan joined The Black Crowes on keyboards and vocals for their encore set. The set included two Faces songs, "You're So Rude" and "Glad and Sorry". McLagan appeared in the 2012 film This is 40 performing with Ryan Adams.

In 2013, he appeared with the Warren Haynes band at the Moody Theatre in Austin, Texas, playing piano on one number and organ on the other. McLagan is featured prominently on the Lucinda Williams double album Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone, which was released 30 September 2014 on her own label, Highway 20 Records. He also features prominently on Scunthorpe duo Ruen Brothers' debut album All My Shades Of Blue, released 1 June 2018 via Ramseur Records. McLagan recorded his parts shortly before his death. It was produced by Rick Rubin. Other notable musicians on the album were Chad Smith from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Dave Keuning from the Killers. Towards the end of his life, he relocated to Austin, Texas and did gig nights at local clubs and bars. Ian McLagan & the Bump Band played at the 2006 Austin City Limits Music Festival, and opened for the Rolling Stones in Austin, Texas, in 2006.

Ian & Kim

McLagan was married from 1968 to 1972 to Sandy Sarjeant, a dancer on the television show Ready Steady Go!, with whom he had a son. He then began a relationship with Kim Kerrigan, the estranged wife of Keith Moon, drummer of the Who. She divorced Moon and she and her daughter from her marriage to Moon moved in with McLagan. He began and Kerrigan were married in 1978, one month after Moon died at the age of 32. Kim McLagan died in a traffic accident near the couple's home in Austin, Texas, US on 2 August 2006, aged 57. McLagan published an autobiography, All the Rage: A Riotous Romp Through Rock & Roll History, in 2000. A revised version, with new material, was published in 2013.

Awarded the prestigious Ivor Novello Award in 1996 for his outstanding contributions to British music and inducted into the Texas Music Hall of Fame in 2004, McLagan is beloved by musicians and music lovers alike. He produced the Faces four CD boxed set, Five guys walk into a bar… for Rhino Records, and received a rare honour on April 6th, 2006, when it was proclaimed Ian ‘Mac’ McLagan Day in Austin Texas. McLagan died of a stroke on 3 December 2014, aged 69, at University Medical Centre Brackenridge in Austin.

(Edited from Wikipedia & The Small Faces.com) 

Carla Bley born 11 May 1936

Carla Bley (born Lovella May Borg; May 11, 1936 – October 17, 2023) was an American jazz composer, pianist, organist, and bandleader. An important figure in the free jazz movement of the 1960s, she gained acclaim for her jazz opera Escalator over the Hill, as well as a book of compositions that have been performed by many other artists, including Gary Burton, Jimmy Giuffre, George Russell, Art Farmer, Robert Wyatt, John Scofield, and her ex-husband Paul Bley. She was a pioneer in the development of independent artist-owned record labels, and recorded over two dozen albums between 1966 and 2019.

Born Lovella May Borg in Oakland, California, to Swedish parents. Her father, Emil Borg, a piano teacher and church choirmaster, encouraged her to sing and to learn to play the piano; her mother, Arline Anderson, died of a heart attack when Bley was eight years old. After giving up church to immerse herself in roller skating at the age of fourteen, she dropped out of high school and moved to New York City in 1953 to experience live jazz first-hand. Her primary vantage point was her job selling cigarettes inside Birdland, the Midtown Manhattan jazz club. It was there she met Canadian pianist Paul Bley, who she married after relocating to Los Angeles in 1957, later divorcing. 

She kept the Bley surname professionally thereafter. With her husband’s encouragement, the rechristened Carla Bley began writing music, including “O Plus One,” which appeared on Paul’s 1958 album Solemn Meditation. Returning east, she continued to compose while working in the coat check rooms at New York’s Basin Street and the Jazz Gallery, and her songs began to attract the attention of artists like Jimmy Giuffre, who featured two of her compositions on Fusion (1961) and George Russell, who recorded “Dance Class” and “Beast Blues” for George Russell Sextet At The Five Spot (1960).

Bley’s membership in the Jazz Composers Guild introduced her to Austrian trumpeter Michael Mantler, whom she married in 1965. Their daughter, musician Karen Mantler, was born in 1966. Bley and Mantler formed the Jazz Composer’s Orchestra, which brought together a broad range of musicians, including Cecil Taylor, Steve Lacy, Archie Shepp and Don Cherry, and an affiliated supporting organization — the Jazz Composer’s Orchestra Association — which commissioned work, sponsored performances and functioned as a record label. 

                                    

Bley’s breakthrough came with three major works that were released in the late ’60s: Gary Burton’s A Genuine Tong Funeral (1967), Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra (1969) and the sprawling Escalator Over The Hill (1971), which was released under the Jazz Composer’s Orchestra name but featured 36 musicians, stretching from singer Linda Ronstadt to guitarist John McLaughlin and a young Karen Mantler on vocals. With lyrics by poet Paul Haines, Escalator drew wide praise, including an influential review in Rolling Stone that called it “an international musical encounter of the first order” and a French Oscar du Disque de Jazz award.

In 1972, Bley was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for composition and, with Mantler, founded a new label, WATT. Its first release, Tropic Appetites (1974) was Bley’s debut as a leader. Following a brief sojourn in the U.K., where she worked with bassist Jack Bruce and Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor, she formed the Carla Bley Band and entered a very active period of touring and recording, using a core that included her husband, trombonist Roswell Rudd, Steve Swallow and drummer D. Sharpe. Throughout her career, Bley thought of herself as a writer first, describing herself as 99 percent composer and one percent pianist.

Bley and Mantler were pioneers in the development of independent artist-owned record labels, and also started WATT Records and the now defunct New Music Distribution Service, which specialized in small, independent labels that issued recordings of "creative improvised music". In the mid-’80s, Bley downsized to a sextet and made a shift to more amplified music with Steve Swallow, guitarist Hiram Bullock and drummer Victor Lewis. She and Swallow also formed a duo, which toured and recorded frequently for five years, during which time Bley left Mantler and formed a 32-year relationship with the bassist. In spite of achieving a higher profile, with tours that took her to Europe and Japan, Bley remained circumspect about her talent. As she told DownBeat in 1984: “I’m just a composer, and I use jazz musicians because they’re smarter, and they can save your ass in a bad situation. … I need all the help I can get.” 

Saxophonist Sheppard re-joined Bley and Swallow for Songs With Legs (1994) and they continued as a trio for more than 20 years. Bley arranged and composed music for bassist Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, and wrote A Genuine Tong Funeral for vibraphonist Gary Burton. Bley collaborated with a number of other artists, including Jack Bruce, Robert Wyatt, and Nick Mason, drummer for the rock group Pink Floyd. Mason's solo debut album Nick Mason's Fictitious Sports was written entirely by Bley, and features, alongside Mason on drums, and many of her regular band musicians. The ’90s also saw Bley working more often in a big band setting — both with her own unit and as a guest composer.

In 2005, she arranged the music for and performed on Charlie Haden's latest Liberation Music Orchestra tour and recording, Not in Our Name. In 2009, she received the German Jazz Trophy "A Life for Jazz". During their later years, Bley and Swallow became the most celebrated couple in the jazz world, touring in various formations and appearing as special guests on the festival circuit. In 2015, she was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts, and the following year, to celebrate her 80th birthday, ECM Records organized a special event at Steinway Hall in New York. Her final album, Life Goes On, was released in 2020.

In 2018, Bley was diagnosed with brain cancer, from which she died at home in Willow, New York, on October 17, 2023, at age 87.

(Edited from DownBeat & Wikipedia)