Recently in R.I.P. Category

Dwight "Heavy D" Myers, who passed away November 8 from a heart attack at the age of 44, was part of hip-hop's original "New School," a wave of artists that brought the genre its first real critical attention. Previously, most music fans casually dismissed rappers as singles-driven electro artists and black-music novelties. Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, N.W.A., Public Enemy and others forced the world to accept them on their terms instead of the rockist criteria used to judge Run-DMC, LL Cool J and Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five. With the New School's emergence, hip-hop grew from a fad to a generational force to be reckoned with.

However, radio programmers were reluctant to program "hardcore hip-hop," as it was called back then, for fear of upsetting older listeners. Heavy D & the Boyz were one of the few among this pioneering group to cross the generational divide and land hit singles. Beginning in 1987 with Big Tyme, the Mount Vernon, Queens crew—Heavy D, underrated producer Eddie "Eddie F" Ferrell, and backup dancers Troy "Trouble T-Roy" Dixon and Glen "G-Whiz" Parrish—dominated video shows like BET's Video Vibrations and Video Soul with funky New Jack beats and plenty of dancing. These were the kind of joints that taught you new moves to practice before the party and the latest fashions to cop at the mall. During the next several years, Heavy D & the Boyz recorded some of the best songs of the New Jack era, including "We Got Our Own Thang," "Mr. Big Stuff," and "Gyrlz, They Love Me."

When older folks reminisce about how hip-hop used to be fun, they're referring to artists like Heavy D, Salt-N-Pepa, Kool Moe Dee, Kid-N-Play and others. These artists didn't use profanity—Heavy D. & the Boyz made a track called "Don't Curse" for their 1991 album Peaceful Journey—and no one expected them to. Sadly, those days are over, and we demand that clean-cut teeny-bop acts like Soulja Boy Tell'em and New Boyz talk sh*t in order to earn their hip-hop badge. Twenty years ago, those credentials came at a higher price than potty talk: artistic creativity.

"Living in the Shadows" is a deep cut from 1995's When the Circus Comes to Town, one of the very best records of Bert Jansch's long (and at time tumultuous) career, which ended on October 5th, the day lung cancer claimed his life. Augmented by a muted rhythm section and Mark Ramsden's vaporous saxophone, Jansch's thick Scottish accent, all moody and temperamental, garbles most of the lyrics, save cutting little phrases such as "for the whole damn world to see" and "you got to run through the city with your head down, don't be seen."

It's not considered one of his repertoire's finest hours by any means, yet the song's title, as well as those lines I just mentioned, say something about Jansch's stature, or lack thereof, in America. A Scottish-folk legend in the United Kingdom, the singer, songwriter and deeply skilled picker has always been one of these artists we Yanks tie to more familiar names when he pops up during the course of conversation: "Have you heard Bert Jansch?" "No, I don't think so." "Oh, he's great. Neil Young and Eric Clapton totally worshipped him." Then there's Donovan and Led Zeppelin, both of whom apparently worshipped him as well.

There are certain bands you choose, and certain bands that choose you. It seems like the latter catch you when it matters -- when the time, place and circumstances are just right. For me, R.E.M. was that band, right about the moment when Reckoning was playing on a tape deck in a crappy, prefab, carpeted apartment near the campus of Central Michigan University. The tape deck belonged to Jason, an art major with kinda longish "Andre-from-the-Real-World" hair that he was always pushing out of his face. He was dating my sister. He taught me how to play several chords on the guitar.

I'd argue that no matter who the 13-year-old was at the center of that story, they'd have little choice but to fall in love with R.E.M. And when I say "in love," I'm not fooling: my then-girlfriend and I followed the band on the Monster tour, enduring set after set from Luscious Jackson on muggy Midwestern summer evenings. Michael Stipe's fractured whine narrated my early high school years.

Like every intense, hormone-soaked infatuation, it didn't last. Part of it was that R.E.M. were one of those bands cursed by drawing the largest audience for their lousiest songs. ("Shiny Happy People"? Seriously?) Another part was that somewhere along the road (I'd argue it was not long after they started letting Luscious Jackson join them on the road), they started to seem essentially, irrevocably outdated, like those middle-aged dads clinging to their Converse All Stars. I think the band knew this. This was the era that Mike Mills started wearing those Rhinestone-studded Nudie Suits, for goodness sake. The last ten years have seen a clutch of R.E.M. records, each one promising that the band was releasing, at last, a relevant "rock" record. But relevant? That was Murmur, or Reckoning, hell even Green. Want to hear a rock band? Dig into their 1984 live set recently released as a bonus to Reckoning.

So, when the band announced that they'd decided to call it quits after three decades, it was something of a relief. It was the "now we can remember grandpa laughing, not with tubes coming out his nose" kind of thing. In that spirit -- to remember the best years, and cull the best of the worst -- we've cobbled together a playlist tribute to R.E.M., It's the End of the World As We Know It: An R.E.M. Retrospective. It goes out to you, Jason.

Paris' Ed Banger label has a certain reputation for, if not actual bad-boy behavior, then a certain louche, wanton excess -- from their overdriven club bangers to the frenzied response they elicit from their fans. From Justice's leather jackets and Marshall stacks to the mosh pits at their parties, Ed Banger injects their electro-house with a heavy dose of rock 'n' roll.

But DJ Mehdi, a member of the Ed Banger crew who died this week at the age of 34 after a freak accident at his Paris home, was, by all accounts, anything but your stereotypical, lunk-headed rocker; anything but the preening superstar DJ. A longtime fixture of Paris' hip-hop community who infused the city's electro-house scene with a welcome dose of sly cheer, Mehdi is remembered by friends and collaborators for his striking generosity of spirit.

A-Trak writes, "Mehdi was all about friendship, and that's what's gonna get us through this. Such a kind soul." Bag Raiders write, "The friendliest, greatest and most stylish DJ. A great light. A prince. Amazingly infectious smile. A beautiful man." And Mark Broadbent, of London and Ibiza's We Love parties, writes, "Mehdi always stood out musically from that crowd in my opinion, he always brought a massive amount of soul and funk often lacking. He was always a pure gentleman who showed respect and friendship whenever we met wherever we met."

You can get a sense of Mehdi's spirit in a video clip from Adelaide, Australia's Parklife festival from 2010, as he plays Lionel Richie's "All Night Long," surrounded by friends and fellow musos, all of them singing along without a trace of irony.

To pay tribute to the musician, we've put together a playlist of his tracks and remixes; check it out: A Tribute to DJ Mehdi

What does it take to raise the dead? Maybe it's just Tami Lynn's care package to the biggest bad-ass of all New Orleans femme protagonists, Mojo Hannah: "a few strands of your hair and a five dollar bill." But the real magic in this track, and a million other essential slices of gritty, strutting New Orleans R&B from the '60s and '70s, came from the hand of the composer, producer and arranger with the nearly unpronounceable name, Wardell Quezergue, who died Tuesday of complications from congestive heart failure. He was 81.

If Dr. John is New Orleans' ambassador, Ignatius Reilly its clown and Professor Longhair forever its king, Quezergue was the genius council behind closed doors, earning the nickname "Creole Beethoven." His omnipresent jukebox-soul hits speak for themselves: Professor Longhair's "Big Chief," King Floyd's "Groove Me" and Jean Knight's "Mr. Big Stuff" among them. His early tracks as a producer include iconic oldies like the Dixie Cups' "Chapel of Love" and Phil Phillips' "Sea of Love"; his mid-'70s peak period boasted one sweltering R&B horn arrangement after the next (for the real shit, go straight for Dorothy Moore's '76 groover Misty Blue). When you listen to all of them together, it's certainly not the tossed-off one-liners that stick to your psyche, but rather Quezergue's forceful grooves, the kind of heavy voodoo that makes New Orleans sound like New Orleans. Tami endows Mojo Hanna with the power to "make a dead man jump and shout" -- we wish it was that easy. With great respect and fondness, try a taste of some of Quezerque's steller moments in our playlist, RIP Wardell Quezergue: The Creole Beethoven.

It's impossible to pay tribute to the late songwriter Nickolas Ashford, who died on August 22, without discussing his wife and partner Valerie Simpson. He wrote and recorded nearly all of his songs with her. (Crate-diggers will note that Ashford made a few solo singles in the late '60s.) Married since 1974, the couple was soul music's most durable relationship. To quote from their biggest pop hit, "Solid," they were "solid as a rock."

For black audiences of a certain age, Ashford & Simpson were an archetype as familiar as freaky ol' Rick James and Stevie the blind genius. On their late-'70s soul albums, marriage became a melodrama of commitment, devotion and ecstasy. Their image was indelible -- Ashford with his long, enveloping lion's mane and thick mustache, and Simpson with her flowing cornrows and lissome frame. On the album covers for Send It and Is It Still Good to Ya, the two appeared enraptured in each other, holding on together no matter what happens. Ashford & Simpson's high-volume disco performances on hits like "It Seems to Hang On" and "Found a Cure" lent themselves to parody -- "Loose me! Please!" they shouted lustily to each other on the former -- and seemingly inspired the '90s sketch-comedy show In Living Color's "Ceephus and Reesie" skits. But their partnership, which lasted until Ashford's death, was also based on hard-won experience that they alluded to in song. "Though they don't complain/ Doesn't mean there's no pain," sang Ashford on 1986's "Count Your Blessings." "To forget is the worst/ So always put them first/ Thinking of their needs/ Make them the one you please."

Ashford & Simpson may have achieved a certain legend as disco artists, but their achievement as songwriters was also significant. The couple began writing together in the mid-'60s, and in 1965 they landed their first hit, Ray Charles' "Let's Go Get Stoned." Three decades of classic singles followed: Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell's "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing" (plus Marlena Shaw's "California Soul") in the '60s; Chaka Khan's "I'm Every Woman" in the '70s; and their own "Solid" in the '80s. They wrote and produced Diana Ross' 1979 comeback album The Boss, including the no. 1 title track, as well as albums for Gladys Knight & the Pips. And it must be pointed out that they wrote one of the greatest disco songs ever, Sylvester's incredible "Over and Over."

With Ashford's passing at the age of 70, one-half of this classic songwriting team is gone. But Ashford & Simpson's music together will undoubtedly endure.

Click here to listen to a memorial playlist: A Tribute to Nickolas Ashford

Obits for Warrant's Jani Lane, who was found dead in an L.A. Comfort Inn the evening of Thursday, August 11, will tell you he fronted a band that defined rock's Sunset Strip hair-metal era and the hedonistic "excesses" thereof, with silly sex songs like "Cherry Pie" and power ballads like "Heaven." Lots of them will mention the alcohol and drug abuse and drunken driving he'd fallen into, and most will say something about his hair, which in his prime was as pretty as pretty-boy hair comes. But there's lots more to know.

So some cannier obituaries might go even further, and cite a surprisingly impressive and formative autobiographical essay Lane wrote for his own website, sometime in the last few years. In it, he talked about being born in Akron in 1964 to two mourning JFK fans who originally named him John Kennedy Oswald ("no joke") but got harassed for it, and how his 13-year-older and one-time Joe Walsh sideman brother turned him on to Rubber Soul and the drums. About how Jani was a Pop Warner quarterback whose long-hair-hating ex-Marine high school coach moved him to strong safety, how he fell "deep in love with musical theater" in high school and played the lead in everything from Oklahoma to Arsenic and Old Lace, how by his teens he was already drumming in college bars near Kent State that featured seasoned members of Devo and The Pretenders and The Raspberries. About how high SAT scores placed him in the top-three percentile, how he grew up loving Bowie and disco and funk (and especially "THE BEATLES") as much as '70s hard rock, how after a cover-band stint in Florida, he and a couple pals were inspired by the MTV success of Ratt and Motley Crüe to move to Hollywood and try their hand at the '80s glam-metal thing. About how he had a physical falling-out with his dad, but wound up writing "Heaven" ("I don't need to be a superman as long as you will always be my biggest fan") for him years later, after the tire-making German-American Democrat, Buckeyes/Browns fan and published spirit-writing author who'd fathered Jani was on life support. About how (as everybody knows) Warrant came together and boomed during the hair-metal era, only to bust when the masses turned to grunge, how "Cherry Pie" was a last minute late-Aerosmith imitation written overnight at the urging of a Columbia exec, how two marriages and the band broke up, and Jani was subsequently responsible for two daughters and two solo albums -- only one of which has ever seen the light of the day, at least so far.

It’s easy to make jokes about the premature -- if sadly somewhat predictable -- death of Amy Winehouse, who died today, of officially unknown causes, at the age of 27. It’s almost harder to avoid the jokes. After all, the talented but troubled British soul singer-songwriter preemptively provided us with plenty of fodder, her smash hit “Rehab”; not the least of it. Regardless of how far off everyone could see this tragedy coming, Winehouse’s story is not only a far too familiar example of the heartbreak that inevitably comes with addiction, but also an incredible loss for popular music.

Gil Scott-Heron never had a Top 40 hit, and certainly never had a platinum album. Yet when his death at age 62 was announced on the late afternoon of Friday, May 27, it immediately became a trending topic (and a "trending topic") across the Internet. His impact resonated beyond sales metrics and radio spins.

Ultimately, he'll be remembered as a pioneer of hip-hop music and the coiner of the phrase "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." The latter, which he first recorded as a spoken-word piece for his 1971 debut Small Talk at 125th and Lenox and then as a jazz-funk piece on 1972's Pieces of a Man, weaves around early-'70s iconography like old-school Civil Rights activist Roy Wilkins wearing red-black-and-green jumpsuits and the TV soap Search for Tomorrow. While the pop banalities he rails against have faded from memory, the poem endures as a timeless parable, and a reminder that the real world moves faster than any communication medium, corporation or government can anticipate.

All of our life we've been kicked around, we've been put in jail, we've been shot at, we've had dynamite thrown at us. Then, you don't want us to have nothing.
- Miner, Harlan County USA

Oh, the green rolling hills of West Virginia are the nearest thing to heaven that I know. Though the times are sad and drear. And I cannot linger here. They'll keep me and never let me go.
- Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard, "The Green Rolling Hills of West Virginia"

Right now, as you're reading these words, an entire region, culture and people are dying off because their lands contain rocks and gases that help fuel, "from sea to shining sea," our country's power grid. This is a grim fact. But it's something the late Hazel Dickens --who died in her sleep on Friday, April 22 -- would want us to reflect-on as we mourn her passing. West Virginian to the core and damn proud of it, Dickens, 75, was a courageous and outspoken musician, pro-union activist and feminist who fought for the rights of her fellow Appalachians, from the mountains' coal miners to its disempowered women.

We here at Rhapsody would like to offer our condolences to New York City art-rockers TV on the Radio. "We are very sad to announce the death of our beloved friend and bandmate, Gerard Smith, following a courageous fight against lung cancer," reads a brief note on the band's website. "Gerard passed away the morning of April 20th, 2011. We will miss him terribly." TVOTR has been the most adventurous and fearless American rock band of the past decade, and Smith was a crucial part of that: For numerous samples of his excellence, see our "The World of TV on the Radio" playlist. He will be missed.

Nathaniel Dwayne "Nate Dogg" Hale, who tragically passed away at the age of 41 on the night of March 15, was hip-hop's ghetto troubadour. There were other hip-hop singers that came before him, from the vocally-inclined Cold Crush Brothers and Fantastic Five to Biz Markie's right-hand man TJ Swann. But Nate Dogg was the first to fully complement the MCs he performed with, and not just serve as an out-of-tune foil. He was akin to a great character actor who effortlessly stole scenes from the headliners. His deep baritone and unapologetically gangsta persona defined the G-funk era just as inimitably as Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. Ice Cube put it best on Westside Connection's "Gangsta Nation": "It must be a single with Nate Dogg singin' on it."

Though Nate Dogg is inextricably connected with West Coast hip-hop, his deep catalog of side appearances and three solo albums (most notably 2001's Music and Me) ranges from Mos Def's and Pharoahe Monch's "Oh No" to Ludacris' "Area Codes." When "Oh No" was released in 2000, those two stalwarts of independent hip-hop came under heavy criticism from their fans for allegedly selling out. In hindsight, it's clear that "Oh No" was more than just a commercial ploy; Nate Dogg enjoyed widespread respect in the rap industry, even among those who considered themselves opposed to the mainstream. It didn't hurt that Nate Dogg helped Mos Def and Pharoahe Monch achieve their only top 40 hit to date. He tended to do that. Even 50 Cent scored one of his biggest hits when Nate Dogg sang the chorus on "21 Questions."

Other Nate Dogg jewels include his smooth-yet-rough refrain on Dr. Dre's "Deeez Nuuuts" ("I can't be faded, I'm a n*gg* from the muthaf*ck*n street") and his deliciously obscene verse on Snoop Dogg's "Ain't No Fun (If The Homies Can't Have None)" (" 'Cause I never met a girl/ That I loved in the whole wide world"). My personal favorite was on Shade Sheist's "Where I Wanna Be." It personifies how Nate Dogg could completely overtake a song, leaving you to believe that the song is his alone. I can't remember Shade Sheist's verse and can barely recall Kurupt's, but Nate Dogg's evocative chorus rings in my head: "Where I wanna be/ Right here with my loved ones." Cruising with the homies as the sun sets on a West Coast day - that was the essence of Nate Dogg.

For further listening, check out Rhapsody's Tribute to Nate Dogg playlist.

Welcome to another edition of Classic Rock Crate Digger, a column wherein Rhapsody nerd Justin Farrar wanders the never-ending maze that is our catalog in search of classic rock's forgotten gems. If you're new 'round these parts, then also check out the Crate Digger's archives.

Classic rock lost a top-shelf shredder when a heart attack claimed the life of Gary Moore on February 6. The Irish fret wizard never had the caché of Slowhand or Jimmy Page, but he made some vital contributions to hard rock, particularly in the 1976-to-1986 zone.

Moore's greatest claim to fame is the time he served in Thin Lizzy, one of the Crate Digger's top five best hard-rock bands of the 1970s.* Logging time with the band on no less than three separate occasions, he actually didn't record all that much with them, though he can be heard on 1979's Black Rose: A Rock Legend, Thin Lizzy's last truly classic album. In fact, Moore just might be the main reason why the record succeeded; Thin Lizzy, by the end of the decade, was falling apart. As with so many rock bands, hardcore drug abuse was the chief culprit. The guitarist, who had known Phil Lynott since their days in the Dublin-based band Skid Row in the late 1960s, stepped in and helped realize his old friend's vision. In fact, the record has Moore's fingerprints all over it, particularly in terms of its wild stylistic variety. If you want to hear rock guitar at its most sublime and brilliant, head straight to "Roisin Dubh (Black Rose): A Rock Legend," an epic suite made of radical reworkings of four traditional Irish folk ballads. Moore's melodic runs soar like seagulls high above the jagged Irish coast.

Broadcast were one of the most exciting avant-pop outfits of the '00s, drawing lines between the jangle of classic indie pop, the retro-futurist mystique of Stereolab (whose Duophonic label Broadcast recorded for, before moving to Warp Records), and the psychedelic charge of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and early computer music. Never easy to pin down, Broadcast surprised even their most devoted followers with their last album, 2009's Broadcast and the Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age, which cast their off-kilter dream pop in a hazier, more psychedelic mold.

Last week, Trish Keenan — one half of the duo — passed away at the age of 42, laid low by pneumonia. It's a tragic, premature end to Broadcast's remarkable transmissions. Whether you're a fan of the band or a newcomer to their catalog, I'd urge you to read some of the memorials occasioned by Keenan's passing, particularly Nitsuh Abebe's affecting tribute for New York Magazine and Jess Harvell's appreciation in Pitchfork. As a poignant appendix to Keenan's remarkable life and career, Fact magazine unearthed Keenan's "Mind Bending Motorway Mix," completed just weeks ago and streaming on SoundCloud.

We've assembled our own tribute in the form of a playlist sampling tracks from all the Broadcast albums and EPs in Rhapsody's catalog.

Captain Beefheart - Don Van Vliet, born in 1941 and now dead of multiple sclerosis, just one month short of his 70th birthday - was as much behind his time as he was ahead of his time. And then he wasn't. Almost definitely the greatest "outsider" artist in the history of rock 'n' roll (maybe the only great outsider artist, in a semi-popular/alternative-culture world that he unwittingly helped inspire that now makes pointless film documentaries out of every talentless trumped-up footnote), he was musically, in a lot of ways, a throwback - to Delta blues, Howlin' Wolf, maybe free jazz, although he was known to deny it. (In 1980, he told Lester Bangs that Eric Dolphy and Ornette Coleman didn't move him - at least not as much as a goose, "the way they blow their heart out for nothing like that.")

Delta blues, as anybody who has ever listened to Charley Patton knows, was avant-garde music, not necessarily on purpose. And though he had no qualms about exploding Robert Johnson's "Terraplane Blues" into "Tarotplane" for almost 20 minutes, it was never easy, or even possible, to come close to figuring out what Beefheart's purpose was: He growled about Dachau and ashtray hearts and tropical hot dog nights and multi-coloured Caucasians, and he was clearly concerned about the state of the ecology, but he denied his songs were political allegories; he was just painting in colors, and the words were a canvas.

Keith "Guru" Elam passed away last night, April 19, at the age of 43 from cancer-related illnesses. Many of his fans, including myself, hoped he would recover after surviving a coma scare in February. Alas, it was not to be.

Guru -- an acronym for Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal -- was one of the best MCs to emerge from the late 80s hip-hop renaissance, a period when the fledgling genre found its form and voice. First known as Keithy E from Boston, he debuted with Gang Starr's 1987 12-inch single, "The Lesson." Though merely a tentative first step, it revealed what would become Guru's lifelong goal: bringing black intellectualism and philosophy back to the streets. Two years later, after Keithy E became Guru, broke with founding Gang Starr producer DJ Mike "1 2 B Down" Dee and brought in Chris "DJ Premier" Martin, his mission to spread "knowledge of self" to B-boys everywhere yielded his first classic: "Words I Manifest."

Very sad news: Bobby Charles died on Thursday, January 14, in the morning, apparently. Though an exact cause of death has yet to be determined, the New Orleans composer and singer had been battling health problems for several years.

I love Charles’ music, yet I know very little about the guy. Then again, very few music writers do, outside of my pal Brian J. Barr, who wrote a fantastic profile on him for Oxford American’s 10th Annual Music Issue. Charles, according to the Seattle-based scribe, “kept a death-grip on his privacy and spent his last years in a two-bedroom trailer ‘with a wide deck on it outside Abbeville [Louisiana]. He told me there was a seafood restaurant he frequented near his home where the waitress would already be mixing his Grey Goose martini before he’d even finished parking his car. He ate alone and he lived alone.”

Bobby Charles, an ethnic Cajun, was more or less a major-league talent who didn’t like the spotlight, who didn’t crave fame and fortune -- just a martini and some killer seafood. This means a lot of music fans out there don’t understand his impact, which is considerable. First off, he’s a legend in New Orleans music. If you’re a legend in the city that gave birth to the very idea of an “American sound,” then you’re a pretty big deal just about everywhere else, from New York to Des Moines to ... Seattle. Much like fellow Big Easy great Allen Toussaint, Charles devoted a good chunk of his career to writing songs for others and in the process had a hand in creating several genres including swamp pop, Southern R&B and hell, even rock 'n' roll its bad self. In the 1950s and ’60s, he penned a string of pop standards, namely “But I Do,” which Clarence "Frogman" Henry had a major hit with; "Walking to New Orleans,” the Fats Domino classic, and the Bill Haley No. 1 “See You Later, Alligator,” a song whose title threaded itself into the very fabric of the American lexicon.

Other chestnuts include “The Jealous Kind,” “Why Are People Like That” and the ballad “Tennessee Blues” (a sublime version of which J.D. Crowe & the New South, with a young Keith Whitley on lead vocals, recorded for their 1978 album My Home Ain't In the Hall of Fame).

Teddy Pendergrass, one of the finest soul singers of his generation, has passed away.

Pendergrass was a Philly drummer with Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes when the star-making Gamble & Huff songwriting/production team noticed his backing vocals. They quickly made him leader singer of the group, much to the chagrin of a certain Mr. Melvin.

Pendergrass' ultra masculine, smokey vocals turned such Philly soul wonders as "If You Don't Know Me By Now," "The Love I Lost" and "Bad Luck" into classics that are still widely heard today. An old Blue Notes hit, "Wake Up Everybody" was even reborn as a protest song during the 2000s. Like Pendergrass' best work, the song hadn't aged a day.

Teddy's star shone even brighter when he went solo. His single finest outing may just be "Love TKO," a blistering torch song with a relentless groove and a peerless Pendergrass vocal. The song is so sublime that millions were rumored to have ended relationships just so they could have the tune work its healing magic on them.

Pendergrass was enjoying a long string of platinum albums, hit singles and sold-out "ladies only" concerts when a 1982 car accident left him paralyzed. Pendergrass soon made a successful recording comeback and his typically sensual "You're My Choice Tonight" should have won the Oscar for best song for the Alan Rudolph cult movie Choose Me.

Teddy Pendergrass also worked tirelessly on behalf of others with spinal chord injuries and charitable work became his primary focus when he retired from music in 2006. He passed away from complications due to colon cancer surgery on January 13th, 2010.

Go here to listen to a stellar collection of Teddy Pendergrass hits on Rhapsody. Also, check out this swank TV appearance and see Pendergrass work his magic in front of a disco dancing audience. 
 

Jay Reatard was the archetypal punk rocker: ridiculously talented, prolific, smart, totally weird, nihilistic, paranoid, tortured -- qualities worthy of worship balanced with traits most of us shamefully try to hide instead of embrace. Sadly, the multi-talented musician, born Jimmy Lee Lindsey, Jr., passed away on Wednesday, January 13, 2010, at the young age of 29.

An ace guitarist and singer-songwriter, Lindsey helped boost the garage rock scene in his hometown of Memphis, where he began recording at the tender age of 15. His first project was the Reatards (initially just him playing guitar, singing and adding his own DIY percussion). He went on to record and play with numerous local artists and bands -- Lost Sounds, Final Solutions, Nervous Patterns, among others. He eventually released his first solo record, Blood Visions, in 2006, before signing to indie label juggernaut Matador Records. He most recently released Watch Me Fall in early 2009.

Lindsey may not have been a household name, but he was a powerful force in the indie and rock worlds. Blood-soaked album covers, fist-fight-inducing performances, song titles like "Greed, Money, Useless Children" -- these were all sly diversions to keep the faint-of-heart away. But those who dared to listen, watch and revel in his talents got every bit of who he was: the good, the bad, the fun, the defiant, the gifted. Now that's punk rock.

Dig into Jay Reatard's catalog on Rhapsody, including exclusive live cuts of his performance at Rhapsody Rocks NYC in 2008.

SoundTreks: A regular feature on the music the other 97 percent of the globe is listening to.

A lot of debate has occurred over the course of music history about whether music itself can really effect political change. In real life, the connection between music and change often seems tenuous at best -- the dream of an aging hippie or an over-eager musicologist -- in the face of more direct or even violent means of revolution. But then, every so often, you hear a voice like Mercedes Sosa's, and all that skepticism washes away. Sosa's songs weren't always political, nor were her performances always even necessarily connected to revolutionary movements (despite the Argentinean government's opinions to the contrary). And she herself said, "Artists are not political leaders. The only power they have is to draw people into the theater." But the weapon the woman had at her disposal, which she often called the "voice of the voiceless," was precisely that: her powerful, compelling voice, a voice rich enough to convey her convictions, a voice capable of inspiring people and giving them strength.

Born in 1935 to a poor family in San Miguel de Tucuman (in Argentina's sugarcane country), Sosa won her first singing competition at age 15 and went on to help pioneer the musical-political nueva cancion movement that swept Latin America in the 1960s. The movement shed light on the concerns of the working people and the disenfranchised in the face of oppressive dictatorships. Though she was not known as a songwriter, Sosa put her own distinctive stamp on many of her peers' tunes, imbuing their tales of struggle and protest with her versatile style (which drew from not only Argentinean folk traditions, but also a wide range Latin genres), her bombo drum and, especially, her evocative contralto voice. In the 1970s, the ruling military junta took notice of her influence (as well as her connections to leftist groups), and the government's harassment forced her into exile. She lived for several years in France and Spain, brokenhearted and working as a musician and a teacher. When she returned to Argentina in 1982, she discovered that she had become a folk hero for her oppressed countrymen. She retained that esteemed position for the rest of her career.


A few of the thousands of mourners who came out to pay their respects in Buenos Aires

Over the course of her career, Sosa released 70 albums (several of which won Grammy and Latin Grammy awards), performed in venues like Carnegie Hall and the Coliseum, collaborated with artists ranging from Caetano Veloso to Pavarotti to Joan Baez, and served as a UNESCO goodwill ambassador. When she passed away on October 4 due to liver, kidney and heart problems, we lost one of Latin America's most beloved singers and a compassionate musical visionary. But the mark that powerful voice left on the world is indelible and prolific.

Take a listen to a few of the late, great Mercedes Sosa's most powerful moments below. Or Rhapsody users can listen to a full selection of her best work on this tribute playlist, a mere tip of this artist's considerable iceberg of work:

Playlist: R.I.P. Mercedes Sosa, 1935-2009

America lost a genuine cultural treasure when on August 7, 2009, Mike Seeger succumbed to cancer. Though he lacked the high profile of his half-brother Pete, who is more or less considered the patron saint of the American folk revival, Mike is in many ways the greatest artist and musician to have emerged from the extended Seeger clan.

Seeger’s work as a sound explorer, archivist and music historian forms a large chunk of his reputation. He rediscovered and recorded the work of several obscure Southern and Appalachian troubadours, including the now-legendary Dock Boggs. In the last years of Boggs' life, Seeger had become his booking agent and closest confidante. Seeger also played a pivotal role in the bluegrass revival of the 1960s. Along with fellow folklorist Ralph Rinzler, as well as other East Coast “citybillies” utterly obsessed with the music, Seeger helped resuscitate the careers of both Bill Monroe and the Stanley Brothers.

Michael Jackson passed away on Thursday, June 25, 2009, at the age of 50. The monumental loss has been felt around the world. Jackson was a prodigiously talented singer and dancer -- an icon that transcended borders, race and age. Beginning in 1969 with the Jackson 5, Michael Jackson loomed over the pop landscape like no one before. Thriller, Off The Wall and Bad rank as three of the greatest pop albums of all time. But more than just the music, Jackson understood the value of spectacle in pop entertainment, and his own life took on a mythical quality. Sure, the fall in the '90s was fast and hard, but Rhapsody would like to take this moment to remember the numerous career highlights from the King of Pop.

	LISTEN: Michael Jackson’s pinnacle, the unforgettable Thriller		PLAY: MJ’s best songs not on Thriller
	REMEMBER: Our Editors reflect on the man, the music and his legacy		FAMILY: The greatest music from the Jackson clan
	DISCOVER: Songs from Aaliyah, Jay-Z, Kanye and Bjork that sampled MJ		READ: The Top 25 Pop Albums of the 1980s

I saw Jay Bennett perform just one time apart from his seven-year stint with Wilco at a Detroit dive called the Lager House, in the shadow of the abandoned Tigers Stadium. For me, a huge fan of Bennett's contributions to Wilco and his first solo record, The Palace at 4am, the performance was hugely deflating -- a drunken mess of bluesy, distorted bar-band rock that seemed completely incongruous with the subtle genius who made Wilco records come to life. Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy's greatest talent has always been the ability to surround himself with the right musicians, and Bennett's holistic, high-minded approach as the multi-instrumentalist yielded both artists' best work. But that was hardly the Bennett that showed up that night in Detroit; the blown-out versions of tunes from The Palace at 4am grew more defiant as the room grew emptier, ensuring that Bennett would capture onlythe most determined of Wilco's audience who had turned up. Foolishly, I left early.

When Bennett was found dead last weekend, the news murmured through the Sasquatch Music Festival in central Washington State. The cause of death is still unknown, but the circumstances of a public quarrel with his old band followed the news closely. Recently, Bennett had filed a lawsuit against Tweedy for breach of contract and unpaid artist's royalties, stemming in part from his role in a 2002 documentary about Wilco, in which he was unflatteringly portrayed. Even though he was on a recording tear at his studio, Pieholden Studios (named for a Wilco song), and enrolled in post-graduate classes at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (an institution where he'd already earned numerous degrees), his health wasn't good; he was also about to have hip-replacement surgery and the timing of the surgery was linked to the lawsuit in message boards.

But as Wilco fans return to Bennett's recordings, it's clear that his legacy won't be darkened by the clouds that hung over his late life. His legacy is that of a selfless, brilliant musician better at playing other people's songs than his own (many of his songs turn out overly crowded with ideas). He was the brains behind the decade's brainiest band, and an arranger who could transform Jeff Tweedy's occasionally obtuse treatises on yuppie discontent into sparkling, profoundly universal statements. It was this ability -- to see into the guts of a song and infuse it with just the right sound -- that made the musical settings for songs written by Woody Guthrie on the Mermaid Avenue recordings pitch-perfect. In celebration of his stunning career, we revisit some of Bennett's greatest musical moments.

Nick Drake was a genius. There's no doubt about it. But he was a tad too effete for my taste -- a private school flower sprung from the gardens of classic literature and fine poetry. That’s not my world. I’m a clumsy, sentimental dude who shakes hands firmly with phrases like "Be a man about it” and "You’re my girl." This is why I mourn the death of Brit folk icon John Martyn, who died from pneumonia on January 29, thus joining his old pal Nick. Martyn's was an art that spoke to me: funky blues music for lovers that reeks of sex, booze and tears. Here was a guy who once referred to marijuana as "mary jane" because that’s what he actually called the stuff.

I don’t want to say Martyn sang from the heart; that implies I somehow know his essence. But he definitely sounded as if he did. The man could emote like nobody’s business. And yet Martyn was a profoundly avant garde individual, far more so than just about any singer-songwriter of his generation. Anybody who digs What's Going On?, Astral Weeksand There’s a Riot Goin’ On has to track down cult classics like Solid Air and the harrowing Grace & Danger (recorded while Martyn's marriage to singer and collaborator Beverly Martyn fell apart). Both albums are the creations of an artist dissolving the lines between folk, soul, free jazz, ambient electronic music and even dub.

For a long time it seemed as if the only musicians who understood what Martyn was up to were fellow mavericks like Arthur Russell, Talk Talk and Portishead. Nowadays, however, just about anybody tinkering with acoustic guitars and programmed beats -- and there are a lot -- seem to be nicking tricks from the guy. That's cool and all. But in the end there will only ever be one John Martyn. Rest in peace.

Fans of any '60s icon share a similar gripe: the legacy of too many great artists is inextricably tied to too few of their songs in heavy rotation on oldies stations. These select tracks get played and played out, and eventually even the lifelong Beatles fan reaches for the dial during the third daily course of "Yellow Submarine." Today, I cued up the Four Tops after reading about the passing of the band's leader, Levi Stubbs, who died in his sleep in his Detroit home at the age of 72, and was reminded about how this predicament is particularly hard on the stable of artists from '60s Motown: The Jackson 5 is relegated to "I'll Be There"; Stevie Wonder, a Motown artist with as deep and wide-ranging catalog of any, is on three times an afternoon with "For Once in My Life." For the Four Tops, the heavy-rotation hits come between 1964's "Baby, I Need Your Loving" and their final Top 10 in 1973, "Ain't No Woman (Like the One I've Got)." Of the handful of stuff between these bookends, some, like The Big Chill-approved "It's the Same Old Song," represent Motown's streamlined mainstream operation. Others, like "Reach Out, I'll Be There," speak to the group's power in the studio. But it's the outlying, oddly successful hit "Bernadette," a tune that is among their most popular and their most enduring, that best demonstrates Stubbs' power as a performer. It's the rare example of a heavy-rotation hit that lives up to its responsibilities. 

by Chuck Eddy

"Manny Farber, a painter whose spiky, impassioned film criticism waged war against sacred cows like Orson Welles and elevated American genre-movie directors like Howard Hawks and Sam Fuller to the Hollywood pantheon, died on Monday at his home in Leucadia, Calif. He was 91...In a famous essay for Film Culture magazine in 1962, “White Elephant Art vs. Termite Art,” he lambasted the portentous, meaning-laden cinema of Welles and his progeny and praised the freewheeling, instinctive work of underrated directors of crime, western and horror films." -- William Grimes, New York Times, August 20, 2008.

by Chuck Eddy

Isaac Hayes never could say goodbye. And if few of us anticipated that the Black Moses would finally cross over to the other side -- on Sunday, as has been widely reported, his wife discovered his body next to a still-running treadmill in their suburban Memphis home, and he was pronounced dead an hour later -- maybe it's because he always gave the impression that he could last forever. In fact, that was the main point of some of his best music.

by Chuck Eddy

It's become this ridiculous cliché in recent years to pretend that "such and such people were the rock stars of their day," whatever that's supposed to mean. Just over the weekend, I saw the claim bestowed upon both early '60s advertising bigwigs (in a New York Times Sunday magazine piece about the TV series Mad Men) and old-time magicians (on Antiques Roadshow). But this morning, when I learned George Carlin had succumbed to heart failure Sunday evening in Santa Monica at the age of 71, the obits reminded me of something -- back in suburban Detroit, in 1974, when I was fresh out of eighth grade at Our Lady of Refuge, this fellow lapsed Catholic seemed to me like a bigger rock star than any rock star I could name, give or take maybe Elton John. And when you think about it, it was guys like Carlin and Cheech and Chong and Richard Pryor whose Watergate-era bullsh*t-detection and post-hippie potty mouths set the stage for what rock music -- or, even more maybe, hip-hop -- would eventually evolve into. So if George Carlin wasn't the rock star of his day, maybe spouting the seven words you can't say on television made him a rap star, at least.

by Chuck Eddy

Bo Diddley, who died Monday at 79, inherited a beat that's been traced back through the '30s fieldworker blues chant "Chevrolet" to the millenium-old West African rhythm Kpanlogo, and he helped invent rock 'n' roll, funk, hard rock, disco, heavy metal, '80s pop, new country and rap music with it. (Via talk-rhymed first-person braggadocio in the latter case -- and "Say Man" has to count as one of the original dis records.)

Bo Diddley’s pre-language rock 'n' roll rhythm, the “Bo Diddley Beat,” was permanently embedded in the human consciousness in 1955 when Ellas Otha Bates (a.k.a. Ellas McDaniel, a.k.a. Bo Diddley) appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show playing it, instead of the Tennessee Ernie Ford song he had agreed to perform. The rest is indeed history as Diddley remains one of the three most important figures in the creation of rock 'n' roll and its subsequent offshoots. Like Chuck Berry's and Little Richard’s, Diddley’s influence was pervasive, and instrumental in the formation of the rock vocabulary -- legend has it that early Rolling Stones shows featured the band simply playing the "Bo Diddley Beat" for the entire night to a roomful of ecstatic kids.

by Chuck Eddy

In a February seemingly loaded with music obituaries - reggae pioneer Joe Gibbs, drum legend Buddy Miles, Christian-rock godfather Larry Norman, crunk haven TVT Records - one of the more discouraging was the 13-year-old roots Americana magazine No Depression.

by Chris Ryan

On Monday, February 25, songwriter Stephen "Static" Garret died of an apparent brain aneurysm, robbing pop music of one its most articulate and sensitive voices, even if his own voice was rarely heard.

by Piotr Orlov

Behold, a requiem for the music producer! In 2008, when pretty much any Tom, Dick or Harriet with a Pro Tools set-up and some decent microphones could finagle a “produced by” credit onto the meta-data file of a digital release, let’s take a moment to pay homage to a pair of gentlemen who worked a little harder in creating great music. It wasn’t just different skill sets or historical perspectives that separated Teo Macero and Joe Gibbs from the multitudes of today’s whippersnappers. Macero, who passed away after a long illness on February 19 at the age of 82, and Gibbs, who died of a sudden heart attack on February 21 at the age of 65, also possessed visions (sonic, aesthetic, hell, even commercial) they could share with their collaborators and guide them to a new place. Rare gifts in the age of press-and-record.

by Sarah Bardeen

It's a heartbreaking story: a musician in the prime of his career suffers from blurred vision, goes to the doctor and two days later, he's dead. But Andy Palacio wasn't just any musician. The man championed his native -- and dying -- Garifuna culture, helped revive its disappearing language, and made music that enthralled fans around the globe.

by Nate Cavalieri

After hearing the news about songwriter Dan Fogelberg, who lost his battle with cancer yesterday, it seemed appropriate to cue up his essential hit, "Leader of the Band." Fogelberg wrote it about being the "living legacy" of his father, a community bandleader in Peoria, Illinois, and put it square in the middle of what would ultimately be his career-defining album, 1981's The Innocent Age.             

Here's the Associated Press headline I saw about Ike Turner's passing: Rock, blues and soul pioneer, and the abusive ex-husband of Tina Turner, was 76.

Ouch. Imagine having that on your tombstone.

I don't think the world is going to go into mourning that Ike Turner has passed on. It's probably not going to make anybody popular to remember Ike Turner with fondness. But let's do it anyway.

by Piotr Orlov

It was announced on Friday that Karlheinz Stockhausen, one of the great composers and music theorists of the 20th century, had passed away at his home in Kuerten-Kettenberg, Germany, on December 5. He was 79. No cause of death was announced.

by Chris Ryan

The tragic death of Pimp C yesterday has left the hip-hop nation mourning the loss of one of its great artists and most unique personalities. We decided the best tribute we could pay the man is to highlight some of the incredible music he leaves behind, and celebrate the brazenly honest person people will remember him as.

by Chris Ryan

Chad Butler, aka Pimp C, one half of the legendary Houston rap duo UGK, was found dead Tuesday in a Los Angeles hotel room. He was 33. The cause, as of Tuesday evening, was still unknown.

by Jen Guyre

Quiet Riot frontman Kevin DuBrow, who was still rocking at the young age of 52, was found dead in his Las Vegas home on November 25.  Bandmates, family members and fans are still waiting for answers; the cause of his death has yet to be determined.