Last of Ray's Song Picks and Artists who died in 2008

Ray’s Song Pick of the Day for Monday, Tuesday, 22 / 23 December 2008
Tease for Monday 22 December
Tonight, a UK#1(2) from 29 December 1960. For the first time this artist took over from Elvis at #1 (It's Now Or Never) - a feat repeated exactly 3 years later.

Tease for Tuesday 23 December
This third million-seller for our artist tonight, enjoyed popularity on both sides. The School related song was written by Johnny and Dorsey Burnette. Our chosen song was US#2(3) in early 1958, 18 weeks in Top 100 from 30 December 1957 and was a MODERATE HIT in N.Z.

And the songs;
Monday, Cliff Richard – I Love You
Tuesday, Ricky Nelson – Stood Up

Obituary File for 2008

Cyd Charisse For a reference to dancer Cyd Charisse, who died 17 June 2008, aged 86 and her singer husband, see my Blog from June this year.

Issac Hayes died 10 August 2008. Musician and actor, he composed and sang the theme song from the movie "Shaft", he was the voice of Chef on the animated TV series "South Park", he also appeared in "Escape from New York", "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka" and other movies


NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Jerry Reed, a singer who became a good ol' boy actor in car chase movies like "Smokey and the Bandit," died of complications from emphysema at 71, early Monday, 1 September 2008

Reed was a gifted guitarist who later became a songwriter, singer and actor.

As a singer in the 1970s and early 1980s, he had a string of hits that included "Amos Moses," "When You're Hot, You're Hot," "East Bound and Down" and "The Bird."

In the mid-1970s, he began acting in movies such as "Smokey and the Bandit" with Burt Reynolds, usually as a good ol' boy. But he was an ornery heavy in "Gator," directed by Reynolds, and a hateful coach in 1998's "The Waterboy," starring Adam Sandler.


LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Norman Whitfield, who co-wrote a string of Motown classics including "War" and "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," died aged 67, Tuesday 16 September 2008.

He had suffered from complications of diabetes and had recently emerged from a coma and died at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Whitfield was a longtime Motown producer who during the 1960s and '70s injected rock and psychedelic touches into the label's soul music. Many of his biggest hits were co-written with Barrett Strong, with whom he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2004.

The two won the Grammy in 1972 for best R&B song for the Temptations' "Papa Was a Rolling Stone." Whitfield won another Grammy in 1976 for best original TV or motion picture score for "Car Wash."


By Valerie J. Nelson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 18, 2008
Levi Stubbs, the lead singer of the legendary Motown group the Four Tops whose tough yet soulful voice was showcased on dozens of singles, including "Baby I Need Your Loving" and "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)," died aged 72, Friday 17 October 2008 at his home in Detroit.

A series of illnesses that included a stroke and cancer had caused him to stop performing in 2000.

"We have lost one of the great voices of the 20th century," said Otis Williams, lead singer of another Motown hit-maker, the Temptations. "A few years ago in Las Vegas, I told Levi, 'You are our black Frank Sinatra.' Levi could phrase a song just as beautifully."

The Four Tops were applauded for such hits as "Reach Out (I'll Be There)" and "Bernadette" and -- as the decades rolled by -- for their longevity.

The original members came together in 1953 while in high school in the Detroit area. They spent the ensuing 44 years performing without a change in the lineup, and then only because founding member Lawrence Payton died in 1997. Another original member, Renaldo "Obie" Benson, died in 2005.

The only surviving member, Abdul "Duke" Fakir, leads a version of the Four Tops that includes Payton's son, Roquel.


From the BBC South African singing legend Miriam Makeba died 10 November 2008, aged 76, after being taken ill in Italy.
She had just taken part in a concert near the southern town of Caserta and died of a heart attack.

Born in Johannesburg on 4 March 1932, Makeba spent more than 30 years in exile after lending her support to the anti-apartheid struggle.
She appeared on Paul Simon's Graceland tour in 1987 and in 1992 had a leading role in the film Sarafina!

Her singing career started in the 1950s as she mixed jazz with traditional South African songs.
She came to international attention in 1959 during a tour of the United States with South African group the Manhattan Brothers.

She was forced into exile soon after when her passport was revoked after starring in an anti-apartheid documentary and did not return to her native country until after Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990.

It was while living in exile in the US that she released her most famous songs, Pata Pata and the Click Song.
"You sing about those things that surround you," she said. "Our surrounding has always been that of suffering from apartheid and the racism that exists in our country. So our music has to be affected by all that."

It was because of this dedication to her home continent that Miriam Makeba became known as Mama Africa.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) Odetta Holmes, the deep-voiced folk singer whose ballads and songs became for any a soundtrack to the American civil rights movement, died at age 77, late Tuesday 2 December 2008 at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, after a decade-long fight with chronic heart disease and pulmonary fibrosis in her lungs.

Odetta Holmes, born in Birmingham, Alabama, 31 December, 1930, told the Times in a 2007 interview the music of the Great Depression, particularly the prison songs and work songs from the fields of the deep South, helped shape her musical life.

While she recorded several albums and sang at New York's Carnegie Hall among other prominent venues, Odetta is perhaps best remembered by most Americans for her brief performance at the August 1963 march on Washington, a pivotal event in the civil rights movement at which she sang the song "O Freedom."

Her first solo album, "Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues," influenced another American folk legend -- Bob Dylan. "The first thing that turned me on to folk singing was Odetta," Dyland said in a 1978 interview with Playboy magazine.

Eartha Kitt, a sultry singer, dancer and actress who rose from South Carolina cotton fields to become an international symbol of elegance and sensuality, died, aged 81 on Christmas Day 2008.
Eartha Kitt, who was recently treated at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, died Thursday in Connecticut of colon cancer.
Kitt, a self-proclaimed "sex kitten" famous for her catlike purr, was one of America's most versatile performers, winning two Emmys and nabbing a third nomination. She also was nominated for several Tonys and two Grammys.
Her career spanned six decades, from her start as a dancer with the famed Katherine Dunham troupe to cabarets and acting and singing on stage, in movies and on television. She persevered through an unhappy childhood as a mixed-race daughter of the South and made headlines in the 1960s for denouncing the Vietnam War during a visit to the White House.
Through the years, Kitt remained a picture of vitality and attracted fans less than half her age even as she neared 80. POLLY ANDERSON Associated Press Writer NEW YORK December 25, 2008 (AP). See the You Tube clip of "I Want To Be Evil" from 1962 and Santa Baby.
Eartha's charting songs ...
C’est Si Bon, US#8, 14 weeks in Top 30 from 18 July 1953
I Want To Be Evil, US#22, 4 weeks in Top 30 from 26 September 1953
Santa Baby, US#4, 5 weeks in Top 30 from 5 December 1953
Somebody Bad Stole De Wedding Bell (Who’s Got De Ding Dong), US#16, 4 weeks in Top 30 from 13 February 1954
Lovin’ Spree, US#20, 3 weeks in Top 30 from 13 February 1954
Under The Bridges Of Paris, UK#7, 9 weeks in Top 20 from 4 April 1955

And for a link to a listing of Celebrities lost in 2008