Tom Fowler obit

In Memoriam: Tom Fowler

 He was not on the list.

Tom Fowler, known best for his time with Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention, has died of undisclosed causes. He was 73 years old. The news was shared in part by fellow Zappa alum Arthur Barrow, who paid tribute to Fowler.

“Tom Fowler left us yesterday, July 2, 2024. He was a hero to me,” Barrow shared on Facebook. “The first time I heard [‘Echidna’s Arf’], I almost fell over when he played the big 5/16 lick on the bass! I had no idea that a clumsy bass could do such a thing! He was an inspiration for me to buy a bass and start practicing. I have known him since about 1976. RIP, old friend – missing you very much.”

Fowler was born in Salt Lake City and started playing music with his brothers at age six. After several years on the violin, he switched to double bass and then to the electric bass after hearing Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa. He played on two albums with a band called It’s A Beautiful Day before moving to New York to play jazz. After that he moved to San Francisco, where he ended up playing violin again.

“Then [Fowler’s brother Bruce] called me up and I auditioned for Frank and somehow I got the gig,” Fowler said in a 2000 interview. “I hadn’t even been playing bass, but I guess he got sick of looking for a bass player. This was in 1973. The audition was very simple. He had me play a couple of odd muted things and groove for a while, and then he said ‘OK, you’re it’. That was a really good band.”

The bassist played on some of Zappa’s most iconic albums, including Apostrophe (‘), Roxy & Elsewhere, and One Size Fits All. Check out this 1974 performance of “Inca Roads”:

After his time with Zappa, Fowler had a stint with fusion violinist Jean-Luc Ponty as well as Steve Hackett and The Fowler Brothers. Maybe his other biggest musical contribution was with Ray Charles. He served as the R&B legend’s bassist from 1993 until the pianist’s death in 2004. Fowler appears on the final Ray Charles album, Genius Loves Company.

Our thoughts are with the family and friends of Tom Fowler.

Keke Jabbar obit

Keke Jabbar Dies: ‘Love & Marriage: Huntsville’ Reality TV Personality Was 42

 

She was not on the list.

Keke Jabbar, a reality TV personality from Love & Marriage: Huntsville, has died. She was 42.

LaTisha Moore Scott, a cast member on the OWN reality series and Jabbar’s cousin, shared a post on social media.

“At this time we are asking for RESPECT, and PRIVACY in our moment of grief, while we process this great loss!” Scott shared on Instagram. “This is hard for our Family!!!!!”

The death of Jabbar was reported by YouTube vlogger Marcella Speaks, where she read a statement from the family saying the reality star died “peacefully at home surrounded in love.”

“She was a mom, a sister, a great friend, full of life, love, and laughter. She will sorely be missed,” Speaks read.

Jabbar and Scott infamously feuded throughout their lifetime together on the reality TV series. Their strained relationship was chronicled by cameras with tense moments among them.

In a scene from a recent season, Jabbar and Scott starred in a confrontation that ended with Jabbar throwing a drink at Scott’s face.

Earlier this year, Jabbar faced accusations of using hard drugs and using someone else’s urine to pass a drug test.

“I’ve never taken any kind of hard drug,” Jabbar said on the Love & Marriage: Huntsville Reunion after being confronted by the show’s producer Carlos King. “I’ve never taken anything, heroin, cocaine, crack… I’ve never taken anything like that.”

King followed up to ask Jabbar if she had been sober throughout filming, which she said she was.

Love & Marriage: Huntsville follows three high-powered African-American couples who are longtime friends come together to revitalize the thriving city of Huntsville, Alabama, through their joint real estate venture, The Comeback Group.

King’s Kingdom Reign Entertainment produces the Love & Marriage franchise, with ITV America also serving as producer.

Laurie Lindeen obit

Laurie Lindeen Dies: Zuzu’s Petals Singer/Songwriter And Author Was 62

 

She was not on the list.

Laurie Lindeen, who blazed a trail in the grunge era as a guitarist with indie rockers Zuzu’s Petals and later chronicled the experience in a book, died Monday In Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts of a brain aneurysm at 62.

Lindeen moved from Wisconsin in 1987 to join the burgeoning Minneapolis music scene, where acts like Prince, The Replacements, Hüsker Dü, Soul Asylum, The Jayhawks, and Babes in Toyland were putting the city on the map.

Zuzu’s Petals, which took its name from the rose petals carried by James Stewart’s character in the film It’s a Wonderful Life, made a mark at local clubs as an all-female band at a time when that was still somewhat of a novelty. They recorded a debut four-song cassette with help from Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum and Gary Louris of the Jayhawks.

The band later released two full-length albums for Twin/Tone Records, 1992′s When No One’s Looking and 1994′s The Music of Your Life.

Lindeen married Paul Westerberg of the Replacements, and she gradually pulled back from touring extensively, but still occasionally appeared at Minneapolis clubs. She turned her focus to writing, producing Petal Pusher: A Rock and Roll Cinderella Story in 2007 for Atria Books and contributing an essay to the New York Times.

She earned a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Minnesota while also raising her son with Westerberg, Johnny.

In recent years, she offered writing and literature lessons at the University of St. Thomas, St. Cloud State University, the Loft Literary Center and local grammar schools. She also led writing retreats at Madeline Island in Wisconsin and other locations.

A recent writing, My Third Act, published by the University of Minnesota Alumni Association, was about her move to Martha’s Vineyard with her new partner, Jim Diem.

In addition to her son and partner, she is survived by her father, Lance Lindeen of Northville, Michigan, and three siblings, Megan Lindeen of Madison, Wisconsin, Hillary Benson of Hilton Head, South Carolina, and Chris Lindeen of Santa Fe, New Mexico. No memorial plans have been announced.

Cliff Waldron obit

Cliff Waldron passes

 

He was not on the list.

Bluegrass singer and bandleader Cliff Waldron, early musical partner of Bill Emerson, and one of the leading lights of the 1960s and ’70s bluegrass scene in and around Washington, DC, died yesterday in Virginia. He was 83 years of age.

A native of West Virginia, Cliff moved to DC in his early 20s, and played with a number of groups including The Southern Ramblers and the Page Valley Boys, before timing up with Bill as Emerson & Waldron. The two had started playing together professionally when Bill took over Buzz Busby’s Bayou Boys, working initially as The Lee Highway Boys. But before long, the new name stuck.

With Emerson Cliff has the distinction of recording the first bluegrass version of Fox on the Run, several years before The Country Gentlemen cut it and made it a bluegrass standard. Bill and Cliff’s version was quite popular around DC before the Gents recorded it, and their arrangement is what Charlie Waller used for his version.

When Emerson took Eddie Adcock’s spot with the Gentlemen after three years with Waldron, Cliff continued on as a solo bandleader with his own group, The New Shades of Grass. Recording for Rebel Records, he released a number of stellar LPs that established him as among the premiere bluegrass vocalists of his day. Like Waller, he brought a good bit of material from outside the bluegrass canon into the music, recording songs by Merle Haggard, Gordon Lightfoot, and others before it was a common occurrence.

During the ’70s members of Waldron’s band included future luminaries like Dave and Mike Auldridge, Ben Eldridge, Akira Otsuka, Ed Ferris, Jimmy Arnold, Gene Johnson, and Billy Wheeler. It was always a lively and entertaining show, but Cliff gave up the music business and took a job with the National Park Service in the late ’70s.

But upon his retirement in 1996, he was right back to the bluegrass, forming a new edition of The New Shades of Grass, and returned to recording for Rebel. These later projects continued a similar theme to his earlier album, Cliff’s smooth and expressive voice on a mix of bluegrass classics, new material, and covers, backed by a strong band. He also returned to performing live and was seen on stage for the next decade.

Fortunately, many Cliff Waldron records remain available, including a “best of” project reissued a few years back on Rebel.

Cliff received a Distinguished Achievement Award from the IBMA in 2021, and will be long remembered for his music.

Funeral services will be held on July 12 at the Baker-Post Funeral Home in Manassas, VA at 1:00 p.m. The family will receive visitors the hour beforehand.

We have lost one of the truly special and influential voices in bluegrass music, one which endured until the end.

R.I.P., Cliff Waldron.

Rusty Golden obit

Rusty Golden Dies: Country Musician & Songwriter, Son Of Oak Ridge Boys’ William Lee Golden Was 65

 

He was not on the list.

Rusty Golden, the son of The Oak Ridge Boys‘ William Lee Golden who went on to his own successful career as a country and gospel music singer, songwriter and instrumentalist, died July 1, at his home in Hendersonville, Tennessee. He was 65.

A cause of death was not disclosed.

“This is the hardest thing ever for a father to have to face,” said William Lee Golden in a statement announcing his son’s death. “I love my family more than anything. Rusty was a great musician, a talented songwriter, and a wonderful son. We appreciate your thoughts and prayers for the days ahead. I love you, son.”

Born William Lee Golden Jr., on January 3, 1959, in Brewton, AL, Golden was called Rusty while still a baby, and the name stuck. By age 12 he already was a proficient drummer and at 13 began playing professionally as a member of The Rambos, featuring the songwriter Dottie Rambo.

His music-making took a big turn when he attended an Elton John concert in 1972: Gone were the drums in favor of John’s chosen instrument, the piano. By 17 he was touring with country hitmaker Larry Gatlin, playing piano on Gatlin’s 1977 studio album Love Is Just a Game. Other session credits include Marty Stuart’s 1999 concept album The Pilgrim, among many others.

In the early 1980s Golden co-founded country-rock group The Boys Band, whose 1982 debut album included the minor pop hit “Don’t Stop Me Baby (I’m on Fire).” In 1984 Golden received an RIAA Gold Record for his songwriting contributions on The Oak Ridge Boys album Bobbie Sue.

A year later he began writing songs and recording with third-generation gospel singer Marc Speer as Golden Speer, along with Golden’s brother Chris. They recorded a project for CBS Records that went unreleased, but Rusty and Chris pressed on as The Goldens and inked with Epic Records in 1986. They released a pair of singles that made Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart in 1988 — “Put Us Together Again” and “Sorry Girls” — and recorded an album that was shelved.

The Goldens then signed with Capitol/SBK Records, and their 1990 album Rush for Gold produced the country-charting single “Keep the Faith.”

Following a quadruple bypass, Golden returned to his gospel roots, writing, among other songs, “What Salvation’s Done for Me” for The Booth Brothers and “I Want to Thank You” for Karen Peck & New River. He also released two solo albums, the Christian-focused Angels and recovery-themed Sober.

In 2020-21, the Golden brothers and father William Lee recorded and released 34 songs as The Goldens, performing several times at the Grand Ole Opry. In 2023, Golden stepped on the Opry stage to accept Keyboard Player of the Year by the Josie Music Awards.

Golden is survived by his father William Lee Golden; stepmother Simone; brothers Craig, Chris and Solomon Golden; and other extended family members. He was preceded in death by mother Frogene Normand, and grandparents Luke & Rutha Mae Golden and Elliot & Estelle Normand.

Robert Towne obit

Robert Towne, Oscar-Winning ‘Chinatown’ Screenwriter, Dies at 89

The San Pedro native also wrote 'The Last Detail,' 'Shampoo' and 'Tequila Sunrise' and forged a superstar reputation as a script doctor and consultant.  

He was not on the list.

Robert Towne, the screenwriter as superstar whose Oscar-winning work on the 1974 classic Chinatown is widely recognized as the gold standard for movie scripts, has died. He was 89.

Towne died Monday at his home in Los Angeles, publicist Carri McClure announced.

He also received Academy Award nominations for The Last Detail (1973) and Shampoo (1975) in the years surrounding his most famous work.

His takes on Los Angeles were etched with melancholy and painted the city as one of beauty and sadness. In Chinatown and Shampoo, gumshoe J.J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson) and Beverly Hills hairdresser George Roundy (Warren Beatty) end up alone. (Towne collaborated often with those actors.)

This squinty vantage on Southern California, as a temptress who dashes hopes, also was evident in his script for Tequila Sunrise (1988), which starred Mel Gibson as a retired drug dealer, Kurt Russell as a cop and Michelle Pfeiffer as the femme fatale.

Towne also was highly regarded for his work as a script doctor, contributing the Marlon Brando garden scene to The Godfather (1972) and supplying crucial pieces to other films like Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde (1967).

When Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola accepted the Oscar for best screenplay (co-written with Mario Puzo), he thanked Towne from the stage. The writer had been prominently credited as a “special consultant” on Bonnie and Clyde after Beatty, the star and producer on that film, came to him for help.

Towne again collaborated with Beatty on Love Affair (1994), a remake of the classic 1932 Irene Dunne-Charles Boyer movie.

Towne was renowned for his ability to construct ornate but compact screenplays and write pungent dialogue that conveyed rich, and, at times, complex, contradictory meanings.

“He knows how to use sly indirection, canny repetition, unexpected counterpoint and a unique poetic vulgarity to stretch a scene or an entire script to its utmost emotional capacity,” film critic Michael Sragow wrote in 1998. “He’s also a lush visual artist with an eye for the kind of images that go to the left and right sides of the brain simultaneously.”

Chinatown was his masterpiece, with the classic noir detective story showing up on numerous critics’ “best” lists. Fashioned around the story of the Mulholland family and fights over L.A. water rights, the Raymond Chandler-inspired film also starred Faye Dunaway and John Huston and was directed by Roman Polanski. The film received 11 Oscar noms, but only Towne won.

(Towne talked about writing “a leading man part for Nicholson” in Sam Wasson’s book The Big Goodbye, which THR excerpted in 2020. The book also notes that Edward Taylor, a former college roommate and frequent collaborator of Towne’s, did a great deal of work on the screenplay without credit.)

His Chinatown follow-up, The Two Jakes (1990), this time directed by Nicholson, also was based on Gittes investigations, but critics found his screenplay lackluster, and the much-anticipated sequel was a bitter disappointment. (In November 2019, it was revealed that Towne and David Fincher were at work on a prequel series for Netflix.)

Towne also wrote the Tom Cruise vehicles The Firm (1993) and Days of Thunder (1990) and was credited with the first two Mission: Impossible blockbusters, released in 1996 and 2000.

He removed his name from the credits of Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984) and substituted the nom de plume P.H. Vazak. The nonexistent writer then shared an Oscar nomination — the fourth of Towne’s career— with Michael Austin. Vazak, it turns out, was the name of Towne’s sheepdog.

Following his more prolific years, Towne was troubled by mysterious illnesses that dissipated his energy to craft original screenplays, confining him to rewrites. “I was like a guy whose arm is only good enough to pitch a few innings. I could not sustain,” he said in 1992.

In fact, some of his best work was done on other’s screenplays — like The Yakuza (1974) and 8 Million Ways to Die (1986), which featured screenplays by Paul Schrader and Oliver Stone, respectively — or on abandoned projects.

Towne also added scenes to Nicholson’s Drive, He Said (1971) and did uncredited polishes to The New Centurions and Cisco Pike, both released in 1972. He also assisted on Marathon Man and the Nicholson-starring The Missouri Breaks, a pair of 1976 movies.

Tequila Sunrise marked his second project as writer-director, following Personal Best (1982), the story of a lesbian track athlete starring Mariel Hemingway. He also did double duty on the Steve Prefontaine biopic Without Limits (1998) and Ask the Dust (2006), another L.A. piece set in the 1930s.

In 2017, Vulture placed him No. 3 on its list of the 100 Best Screenwriters of All Time; only Billy Wilder and Joel & Ethan Coen ranked higher.

Robert Bertram Schwartz was born on Nov. 23, 1934, in San Pedro, home of the Port of Los Angeles. His father owned a ladies clothing store called the Towne Smart Shop in the neighborhood and then became a real estate developer, and the family moved to tony Rancho Palos Verdes.

Towne attended Chadwick Prep School, Redondo Union High and Pomona College, where he studied English literature and philosophy and graduated in 1956. He (along with college pal Richard Chamberlain) studied acting with blacklisted actor Jeff Corey, and it was here that he met Nicholson. The two established an instant rapport.

Like many others, Towne got his start in show business from another institution of higher learning, the “school” of Roger Corman. His first screenplay was a post-apocalyptic opus for the director-producer called Last Woman on Earth (1960).

Towne also starred under the pseudonym Edward Wain in that film and played a secret agent in another Corman flick, Creature From the Haunted Sea (1961). He then cranked out the script for the director’s The Tomb of Ligeia (1964), starring Vincent Price in an Edgar Allan Poe tale.

When Beatty needed help on the script for Bonnie and Clyde, he turned to Towne. The writer then rejected an opportunity to adapt The Great Gatsby, opting to complete his work on Chinatown. He came up with the idea for the story while he was working with Nicholson on The Last Detail, he recalled in a 2009 interview.

“I went to Jack and said, ‘What if I wrote a detective story set in L.A. of the ’30s?’ He said, ‘Great,'” Towne recalled. “The one feeling I had was a desire to try and re-create the city.

“I then had to go to Oregon where Jack was filming Drive, He Said. I hadn’t really read Raymond Chandler at that point, so I started reading Chandler. While I was there at the University of Oregon, I checked out a book from the library [written by Carey McWilliams] called Southern California Country: Island on the Land. In it was a chapter called ‘Water, Water, Water,’ which was a revelation to me.

“And I thought, ‘Why not do a picture about a crime that’s right out in front of everybody?’ Instead of a jewel-encrusted falcon, make it something as prevalent as water faucets and make a conspiracy out of that. And after reading about what they were doing, dumping water and starving the farmers out of their land, I realized the visual and dramatic possibilities were enormous. So that was really the beginning of it.”

Survivors include his second wife, Luisa, whom he married in 1984; his daughters, Kathleen, an actress, and Chiara; his brother, Roger, and sister-in-law, Sylviane; niece Jocelyn; and nephew Nick.

Information regarding a celebration of life will be announced.

 

Filmography

Credits as writer-director

Personal Best (1982) – also producer

Tequila Sunrise (1988)

Without Limits (1998)

Ask the Dust (2006)

Credits as writer only

Last Woman on Earth (1960)

The Lloyd Bridges Show (1963–64) (TV series) – episodes "A Personal Matter", "My Daddy Can Lick Your Daddy"

Breaking Point (1964) (TV series) – episode: "So Many Pretty Girls, So Little Time"

The Outer Limits (1964) (TV series) – episode: "The Chameleon"

The Tomb of Ligeia (1964)

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964) (TV series) – episode: "The Dove Affair"

Bonnie and Clyde (1967) (credited as special consultant)

Villa Rides (1968)

Drive, He Said (1971) (uncredited)

Cisco Pike (1972) (uncredited)

The New Centurions (1972) (uncredited)

The Godfather (1972) (uncredited)

The Last Detail (1973)

Chinatown (1974)

The Parallax View (1974) (uncredited)

The Yakuza (1974)

Shampoo (1975)

The Missouri Breaks (1976) (uncredited)

Marathon Man (1976) (uncredited)

Orca (1977) (uncredited)

Heaven Can Wait (1978) (uncredited)

Reds (1981) (uncredited consultant)

Deal of the Century (1983) (uncredited)

Swing Shift (1984) (uncredited)

Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984) (as P. H. Vazak)

8 Million Ways to Die (1986) (uncredited)

Tough Guys Don't Dance (1987) (uncredited)

Frantic (1988) (uncredited)

The Two Jakes (1990)

Days of Thunder (1990)

The Firm (1993)

Love Affair (1994)

Crimson Tide (1995) (uncredited)

Mission: Impossible (1996)

Mission: Impossible 2 (2000)

Credits as actor

Last Woman on Earth (1960) as Martin Joyce (as Edward Wain)

Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961) as Sparks Moran/Agent XK150/Narrator (as Edward Wain)

The Zodiac Killer (1971) as Man in Bar #3 as Robert Tubin)

Drive, He Said (1971) as Richard

Shampoo (1975) as Party Guest (uncredited)

The Pick-up Artist (1987) as Stan

Suspect Zero (2004) as Professor Dates (uncredited)

 

Other credits

The Young Racers (1963) – assistant director

Unmade projects

I Flew a Spy Plane Over Russia (1962) – script for Roger Corman

The Brotherhood of the Grape (1975) – script for Francis Ford Coppola, based upon the novel by John Fante

The Mermaid (1983) – script for Warren Beatty

Gittes vs. Gittes (1990) – unproduced sequel script to The Two Jakes

Beverly Hills Cop III (1994) – rejected script

The Night Manager (1994) – script for Sydney Pollack, based upon the novel by John le Carré

The 39 Steps remake (2003) – writer/director

Pompeii TV miniseries (2011) – 4 part series for Scott Free Productions, based on the book by Robert Harris

Compadre TV pilot (2011) – teleplay for Scott Free Productions

Next of Kin (2011) – script for David Fincher

The Battle of Britain (2011) – script for Graham King

Untitled Chinatown prequel series (2019) – teleplay(s) for David Fincher, to be produced at Netflix