Here are the notable deaths on September 19 throughout the years:
Clyde Julian “Red” Foley (June 17, 1910 – September 19, 1968) - A country music singer. Foley was born in Blue Lick, Kentucky. He began playing the guitar and the harmonica as a young boy and at age seventeen, he won first prize in a statewide talent show. Ultimately, he signed with Decca Records in 1941. His hit songs include “Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy,” “Birmingham Bounce,” “Old Shep,” “Sugarfoot Rag,” and “Tennessee Saturday Night.” “Peace in the Valley,” backed up by The Sunshine Boys, in 1951 became the first gospel record to sell a million copies, and “One By One,” a duet with Kitty Wells, became a chart topper in 1954. In the 1960s, he also had a hit dance record with square dancers from that era known as “The Salty Dog Rag.” For more than two decades, Foley was a major star of country music, selling in excess of twenty-five million records. He hosted the popular “Ozark Jubilee” television program between 1955 and 1960. During 1962-63, Foley was a regular cast member along with Fess Parker in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” an ABC television series based on the famous 1939 movie. Foley was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1967. He died unexpectedly in 1968 in Fort Wayne, Indiana at the age of 58 from a heart attack. He is interred in the Woodlawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Nashville. His daughter from his second marriage to Judy Martin (née Eva Alaine Overstake) is Shirley Lee Foley, who has been married to actor/singer Pat Boone since 1953. Shirley and Pat’s daughters are Cherry, Lindy, Laury, and singer Debby Boone. A dance to Red Foley’s song “The Salty Dog Rag” has been traditional at Dartmouth College since 1972, where it is taught to incoming freshman during orientation activities. The dance is believed to originate from The Putney School, and is also performed at the YMCA Sandy Island Camp in Lake Winnipesaukee. Here is Foley performing “Peace in the Valley”:(more…)
Here are the notable deaths on September 17 throughout the years:
Spiro Theodore Agnew (November 9, 1918 – September 17, 1996) - The thirty-ninth Vice President of the United States (and the first Greek American to serve in that capacity) serving under President Richard M. Nixon, and the 55th Governor of Maryland. He is noted for his quick rise in politics…going in six years from County Executive to Vice President of the United States. During his fifth year as Vice President, in the late summer of 1973, Agnew was under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Baltimore, Maryland, on charges of extortion, tax fraud, bribery, and conspiracy. In October, he was formally charged with having accepted bribes totaling more than $100,000, while holding office as Baltimore County Executive, governor of Maryland, and Vice President of the United States. On October 10, Agnew was allowed to plead no contest to a single charge that he had failed to report $29,500 of income received in 1967, with the condition that he resign the office of Vice President. Agnew is to date the only Vice President in U.S. history to resign because of criminal charges. Ten years after leaving office, in January 1983, Agnew paid the state of Maryland nearly $270,000 as a result of a civil suit that stemmed from the bribery allegations. Agnew died suddenly at the age of 77 at Atlantic General Hospital, in Berlin, Maryland in Worcester County (near his Ocean City home), only a few hours after being hospitalized and diagnosed with an advanced, yet to that point undetected, form of leukemia. He is buried at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens, a cemetery in Timonium, Maryland in Baltimore County. (more…)
Stephen Bantu Biko (December 18, 1946 – September 12, 1977) - A noted anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s and early 1970s. A student leader, he later founded the Black Consciousness Movement, which would empower and mobilize much of the urban black population. At the time of his death, clandestine negotiations were in progress sounding Biko out as deputy leader of the Maoist-oriented Pan Africanist Congress. Since his death in police custody, he has been called a martyr of the anti-apartheid movement. While living, his writings and activism attempted to empower black people, and he was famous for his slogan “black is beautiful”, which he described as meaning: “man, you are okay as you are, begin to look upon yourself as a human being.” The ANC was very hostile to Biko and to Black Consciousness through the 70s to the mid 90s but has now included Biko in the pantheon of struggle heroes, going so far to use his image for campaign posters in South Africa’s first non-racial elections, in 1994. On August 18, 1977, Biko was arrested at a police roadblock under the Terrorism Act No 83 of 1967. He suffered a major head injury while in police custody, and was chained to a window grille for a day. On September 11, 1977 police loaded him in the back of a Land Rover, naked, and began the 1,500 km drive to Pretoria to take him to a prison with hospital facilities in order to treat the already near-dead Biko. He died shortly after arrival at the Pretoria prison, on September 12. The police claimed his death was the result of an extended hunger strike. He was found to have massive injuries to the head, which many saw as strong evidence that he had been brutally clubbed by his captors. Then journalist and now political leader, Helen Zille, exposed the truth behind Biko’s death. The liberal white South African journalist Donald Woods, a personal friend of Biko, photographed his injuries in the morgue. Woods was later forced to flee South Africa for England, where he campaigned against apartheid and further publicized Biko’s life and death, writing many newspaper articles and authoring the book, Biko. In 1980, Peter Gabriel wrote and recorded the song “Biko” that has been covered by many artists. In 1987, Richard Attenborough directed the movie Cry Freedom, a biographical drama about Biko starring Denzel Washington and Kevin Kline. (more…)
Here are the notable deaths on September 9 throughout the years:
William Smith “Bill” Monroe (September 13, 1911 – September 9, 1996) - An American musician who developed the style of music known as bluegrass, which takes its name from his band, the “Blue Grass Boys,” named for Monroe’s home state of Kentucky. Monroe’s performing career spanned 60 years as a singer, instrumentalist, composer, and bandleader. He is often referred to as “the father of bluegrass.” He suffered a stroke in April of 1996, effectively ending his touring and playing career, and died on September 9. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1970, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1971, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (as an “early influence”) in 1997. Jimmie Rodgers, Bob Wills, Hank Williams Sr., and Johnny Cash are the only other performers honored in all three. As the “father of bluegrass,” he was also an inaugural inductee into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor in 1991. In 1993, he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and he was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1995. His well-known song “Blue Moon of Kentucky” has been covered not only by bluegrass but also rock and country artists, most notably Elvis Presley, Paul McCartney, and Patsy Cline. In 2003, CMT had Bill Monroe ranked #16 on CMT 40 Greatest Men of Country Music. Artists that claimed to be influenced from or be playing the bluegrass genre were often bullied by Bill Monroe. He always considered himself the father and caretaker of bluegrass. He would often say of new bands that did not perform to his standards: “That ain’t no part of nothin’.” Modern bluegrass singer and mandolin player Ricky Skaggs was greatly influenced by Bill Monroe. Skaggs was only six years old when he first got to perform on stage with Monroe and his band. Here is a 1980 performance of “Blue Moon of Kentucky”:
Here are the notable deaths on September 8 throughout the years:
Dorothy Jean Dandridge(November 9, 1922–September 8, 1965) - An American actress and popular singer. Dandridge was the first African American to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress (for 1954’s Carmen Jones), becoming only the third African American to receive a nomination in any Academy Award category (after Hattie McDaniel and Ethel Waters.) On September 8, 1965, Dandridge spoke with friend Gerry Branton. Dandridge was scheduled to fly to New York the next day to prepare for her nightclub engagement at Basin Street East. Several hours after her conversation with Branton ended, Dandridge was found dead by her manager, Earl Mills. Two months later a Los Angeles pathology institute determined the cause to be an accidental overdose of Imipramine, a tricyclic antidepressant. She was 42 years old. On September 12, 1965, a private funeral service was held for Dandridge at the Little Chapel of the Flowers; then she was cremated and her ashes were entombed in the Freedom Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California. In 1999, Halle Berry took the lead role of Dandridge in the HBO movie “Introducing Dorothy Dandridge,” for which she won an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Here is Dandridge singing “You Do Something to Me”:
Here are the notable deaths on September 5 throughout the years:
Mother Teresa (August 26, 1910 – September 5, 1997) - Born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, she was an Albanian Roman Catholic nun with Indian citizenship who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata (Calcutta), India in 1950. For over forty five years she ministered to the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying, while guiding the Missionaries of Charity’s expansion, first throughout India and then in other countries. By the 1970s she had become internationally famed as a humanitarian and advocate for the poor and helpless, due in part to a documentary, and book, Something Beautiful for God by Malcolm Muggeridge. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and India’s highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna, in 1980 for her humanitarian work. Her Missionaries of Charity continued to expand, and at the time of her death it was operating 610 missions in 123 countries, including hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children’s and family counseling programs, orphanages, and schools. Following her death she was beatified by Pope John Paul II and given the title Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. Coverage of Mother Teresa around the world has been mainly positive, and she has been praised by many individuals, governments and organisations; however, in addition to this positive reaction, she has faced a diverse range of criticism. These include objections by various non-Christians, including the atheists Christopher Hitchens and Aroup Chatterjee and the Hindu Vishva Hindu Parishad, against the proselytizing focus of her work; this included alleged baptisms of the dying, a strong pro-life stance on abortion, and a belief in the spiritual goodness of poverty. Several medical journals also criticized the standard of medical care in her hospices, and concerns were raised about the opaque nature in which donated money was spent. She suffered a heart attack in Rome in 1983, while visiting Pope John Paul II. After a second attack in 1989, she received an artificial pacemaker. In 1991, after a battle with pneumonia while in Mexico, she suffered further heart problems. She offered to resign her position as head of the Missionaries of Charity, but the nuns of the order, in a secret ballot, voted for her to stay. Mother Teresa agreed to continue her work as head of the order. In April 1996, Mother Teresa fell and broke her collar bone. In August she suffered from malaria and failure of the left heart ventricle. She had heart surgery, but it was clear that her health was declining. On March 13, 1997, she stepped down from the head of Missionaries of Charity and died on September 5. The Archbishop of Calcutta, Henry Sebastian D’Souza, said he ordered a priest to perform an exorcism on Mother Teresa with her permission when she was first hospitalized with cardiac problems because he thought she may be under attack by the devil. At the time of her death, Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity had over 4,000 sisters, an associated brotherhood of 300 members, and over 100,000 lay volunteers, operating 610 missions in 123 countries. These included hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children’s and family counseling programs, orphanages, and schools.
Here are the notable deaths on September 4 throughout the years:
Dottie West (October 11, 1932 – September 4, 1991) - An American country music singer, and was one of Country music’s most influential and groundbreaking female artists. Her career started in the early-60s, with her Top 10 hit, “Here Comes My Baby Back Again,” which won her the first Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance in 1965. In the 1960s, West was one of the few female Country singers working in what was then a male-dominated industry, influencing other female Country singers to come to fame around that time, like Lynn Anderson, Crystal Gayle, Barbara Mandrell, Dolly Parton, and Tammy Wynette. Throughout the ‘60s, West had major Country hits within the Top 10 and 20. In the early 1970s, West wrote a popular commercial for the Coca-Cola company, titled “Country Sunshine,” which she nearly brought to the top of the charts in 1973. In the late-70s, she teamed up with Country-Pop superstar Kenny Rogers for a series of duets, which brought her career in directions it had never gone before, earning Platinum selling albums and No. 1 records for the very first time. Her duet records with Rogers have now become Country music standards, like “Every Time Two Fools Collide,” “All I Ever Need is You,” and “What are We Doin’ in Love.” In the early-‘80s, West’s image and music underwent a major metamorphosis, bringing West to the very peak of her popularity as a solo act, and even reaching #1 for the very first time on her own in 1980 with “A Lesson in Leavin.’” She was one of the most successful, and controversial, performers to rise to popularity during the Nashville sound era; like her friend and mentor Patsy Cline, West’s battles for identity and respect within the male-dominated Country music hierarchy were instrumental in enabling other female artists to gain control over the directions of their careers.She died as a result of a car accident several days earlier on her way to a performance at the Grand Ole Opry. Due to problems with her own car, West had asked an 81-year-old neighbor to drive her to the Opry for her scheduled appearance. Frantic about getting to the Opry on time, she had urged the man to speed. He lost control of his vehicle while driving 30 miles an hour over the posted speed limit. The car left the ramp to the Opry car park, vaulted in the air, and hit the central division. Both occupants were rushed to the VanderbiltMedicalCenter in critical condition. West suffered a ruptured spleen and a lacerated liver. Her spleen was removed that Friday and, the following Monday, she underwent two more surgeries to stop her liver from bleeding. During her third operation, West died in surgery at 9:43 a.m.West’s funeral was held at ChristChurch on Old Hickory Boulevard. There were 600 friends and family attendees, including Emmylou Harris, Connie Smith, Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, and Larry Gatlin. A couple of weeks later, President George H.W. Bush, a longtime fan for whom she had performed at the White House, expressed his condolences at the CMA Awards. Her hometown of
McMinnville, Tennessee dedicated Highway 56 to her memory, naming it the Dottie West Memorial Highway.In 1995, actress Michele Lee produced and starred in the made-for-TV biopic “Big Dreams and Broken Hearts: The Dottie West Story” that premiered on CBS. Although it received mixed reviews, it was one of the most successful TV movies in CBS history. That same year, a biography book called Country Sunshine: The Dottie West Story was released, and was written by Judy Berryhill and Francis Meeker.In 1999, country music singer Jo Dee Messina covered West’s biggest solo hit, “A Lesson in Leavin’,” for her album, I’m Alright. The song stayed at #2 for seven weeks on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart that year, and was one of the year’s biggest songs.In 2000, West was also honored with the BMI Golden Voice Awards with the Female Golden Legacy Award. She was the second woman to win this type of BMI award, the first being her friend and mentor Patsy Cline. Her hometown of McMinnville, Tennessee, holds a Dottie West Music Festival each year in October. West was ranked #23 in Country Music Television’s 40 Greatest Women of Country Music in 2002.
Here are the notable deaths on September 2 throughout the years:
Ho Chí Minh (May 19, 1890 – September 2, 1969) - A Communist, Marxist-Leninist Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman, who later became prime minister (1946–1955) and president (1946–1969) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam.) Ho led the Viet Minh independence movement from 1941 onward, establishing the communist-governed Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 and defeating the French Union in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu. He led the North Vietnamese in the Vietnam War until his death; six years later, the war ended with a North Vietnamese victory, and Vietnamese unification followed. He was named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, while the former capital of South Vietnam, Saigon, was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in his honor. He died at his home in Hanoi at age 79 from heart failure. (more…)
Here are the notable deaths on August 29 throughout the years:
Mathis James “Jimmy” Reed (September 6, 1925 - August 29, 1976[1]) - An American blues singer notable for bringing his distinctive style of blues to mainstream audiences. Reed was a major player in the field of electric blues, as opposed to the more acoustic-based sound of many of his contemporaries. His lazy, slack-jawed singing, piercing harmonica and hypnotic guitar patterns were one of the blues most easily identifiable sounds in the 1950s and 1960s. By the 1950s, Reed had established himself as a popular musician and joined the “Gary Kings” with John Brim, as well as playing on the street with Willie Joe Duncan. Reed failed to gain a recording contract with Chess Records, but then signed with Vee-Jay Records through Brim’s drummer, Albert King. At Vee-Jay, Reed began playing again with Eddie Taylor and soon released “You Don’t Have To Go,” his first hit record. This was followed by a long string of hits, like “Big Boss Man” and “Bright Lights, Big City” (two songs that were both voted onto the list of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s “500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.”) Reed maintained his reputation, in spite of rampant alcoholism. Sometimes, his wife, Mary “Mama” Reed, had to help him remember the lyrics to his songs while performing. In 1957, Reed developed epilepsy, though the disease was not correctly diagnosed for a long time, as Reed and doctors assumed it was delirium tremens. In spite of his numerous hits, Reed’s personal problems prevented him from achieving the same level of fame as other popular blues artists of the time, though he had more hit songs than many others. When Vee-Jay Records closed down, Reed’s manager signed a contract with the fledgling ABC-Bluesway label, but Reed was never able to score another hit. He died in Oakland, California, a few days short of his 51st birthday. He is interred in the Lincoln Cemetery in Worth, Illinois. In 1991, he was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Here is a recording of his 1960 hit “Baby, What You Want Me to Do,” which went to #37 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart and #10 on the R&B Singles chart:
Here are the notable deaths on August 28 throughout the years:
Ruth Gordon Jones (October 30, 1896 – August 28, 1985) - Better known as Ruth Gordon, was an Academy Award-, Golden Globe-, and Emmy Award-winning American actress and writer. She was perhaps best known for her films roles such as the oversolicitous neighbor in Rosemary’s Baby and the eccentric life-loving Maude in Harold and Maude. In addition to her acting career, Gordon wrote numerous well-known plays, film scripts and books. She and husband Garson Kanin collaborated on the screenplays for the Katharine Hepburn–Spencer Tracy films Adam’s Rib (1949) and Pat and Mike (1952.) Both films were directed by George Cukor. The onscreen relationship of Hepburn and Tracy, seen in those films, was modelled on Gordon and Kanin’s own marriage. Gordon and Kanin received Academy Awards nominations for both of those screenplays, as well as for that of a prior film, A Double Life (1947), which was also directed by Cukor. She had a minor but memorable role as the mother of Orville Boggs (Geoffrey Lewis) in the Clint Eastwood films Every Which Way But Loose and Any Which Way You Can. Gordon died from a stroke in Edgartown, Massachusetts, aged 88, in 1985. A small theater in Westboro, Massachusetts was named in her honor, as was an outdoor amphitheater in Quincy, Massachusetts. Harold and Maude and Adam’s Rib have both been selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the United States Library of Congress. (more…)
