I have been dreading having to write a wrap-up piece about the year 2016. The last post that I made was in November when Leonard Cohen died. Since then, it seems to have been difficult to write anything. It has never been my intention to have my blog look like an obituary column but, it quite often feels like that.
In recent years, I have been reminding people that the musicians whose music we have enjoyed since the ’60s and ’70s are now mainly in their 60s and 70s. That means that the inevitable signs of mortality will surely take hold. This has certainly been the case in 2016.
The year seemed to start off on a high note with a brilliant new release (Blackstar) by David Bowie. However, this event seemed to quickly get overshadowed when Bowie died a couple of days after its release.
The death of Bowie seemed to resonate hard and deep within both the music industry and among his long-time fans. As someone who had been a fan for 45 years, I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. This seemed to be a shared experience as many people that I talked to or exchanged messages with appeared to be doing their best to hold back a wellspring of tears. Many tried but did not succeed. The last time that I can honestly recall such a reaction was when John Lennon was brutally gunned down.
But, that was just the start of a year that appeared to be voracious in its appetite to take away so many musicians and music related personalities away from us. It didn’t matter which genre of music was your favourite, the losses touched all aspects of music from rock, pop, R&B, jazz, classical and avant-garde.
Bowie, Cohen and Prince were among the biggest or most influential names for most of the year and then word of the death of George Michael slipped in on Christmas day.
I’ve owned records by many of the people who have passed this year. I’ve seen some of them in concert. I’ve even had the pleasure to meet a couple of them. The sad fact is that as time marches on, more of these people will make the headlines as they continue to leave us. So, let’s enjoy their music while they are still here and continue to honour their memory after they are gone.
Music can make us happy. Music can make us sad. Music can make us think. Music can make us feel how great it is to be alive. It doesn’t matter what kind of music you like, it just matters that it means something to you. Be grateful for that. It is rare.
Here is a very brief list of some of the musicians and music-related people we lost in 2016:
Signe Anderson (Jefferson Airplane)
Gato Barbieri
Paul Bley
Pierre Boulez
David Bowie
Leonard Cohen
Tony Conrad
Keith Emerson
Glenn Frey (Eagles)
Dale Griffin (Mott the Hoople)
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Merle Haggard
Sharon Jones
Paul Kantner (Jefferson Airplane)
Greg Lake
Neville Marriner
George Martin
George Michael
Scotty Moore
Alphonse Mouzon
Pauline Oliveros
Rick Parfitt (Status Quo)
Prince
Leon Russell
Dave Swarbrick (Fairport Convention)
Rudy Van Gelder
Alan Vega (Suicide)
Maurice White (Earth, Wind & Fire)
For a much more detailed (and depressing) list of the people that we lost this year, please visit Musicians Who Died in 2016.
