Which celebrity death affected you the most?

I’m not a minority, but I noticed something when Michael passed and then something when Whitney passed. What I think I saw was not the person passing because these were two very flawed people. It was the talent passing.

Michael and Whitney were just in another tier of talent that does not happen often. Aretha is also in this talent level, and I cannot think of others who can be considered. In their prime, these three were just amazing. I hope that makes sense.

For me, Bourdain passing really hurt because he seemed so in control and yet he had no control.

For those around me, Dale Sr. just rocked my coworkers at the time.

In the future, when Sir Paul and Sir Elton leave us, the world will feel it. Especially, Sir Paul. Obama’s death will be very crushing to many.

 

Interesting sub-argument here about separating artists from their art.

 

I think I might finally have reached my limit with Louis CK.

 

Tom Petty is the first that came to mind for me. I guess I felt like I went from teenage years to adulthood to middle age and to AARP eligibility with him as part of the soundtrack of my life.

Keith Moon would probably be my answer if I had to pick one. Mainly for the reason that it signaled the death of the Who for me. Yes, they made some additional albums with some decent tunes, but I always felt they lost their personality when he died. And the greatest drummer I ever heard, although his skills were deteriorating due to drink and drugs. Not To Be Taken Away was an apt visual in my view; the group dynamic seemed to change with his loss, the fun and rock and roll recklessness gone, and always left me wondering what it would have been like had he made it to the Eighties and perhaps beyond.

 

Larry King really got to me.

 

Hunter S. Thompson. The way he died wasn't surprising, and he'd long been in decline -- both physically and as a writer. But plugging himself while he's on the phone with his wife, with his son, daughter-in-law and grandson in the next room, just kinda shook me and still does.

Kurt Cobain. I was 20 and a junior in college in 1994 when he died. He was the voice of my generation, doncha know.

Just to show I'm not all about the suicides, I'd say the way David Halberstam died -- in a car accident while being driven by some scatter-brained college kid -- seemed like a weird way to go for such a titan of the industry. IIRC, he broke a rib and the rib pierced his heart. I interviewed him for his Belichick book and he chastised me for using a digital recorder instead of taking notes longhand. That still seems odd to me.

 

I'm sure part of it is generational - but watching the Kennedy Center Honors in the last week made me think - man, they used to honor Bob Hope, Jimmy Stewart, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald and now...Cher? Reba? I'm fans of both - maybe we're not just creating legends as fast as we used to, or the media universe is much less monolithic that everybody has their own "Rushmore".

It made me realize we're probably 10 years away from a Kennedy Center Honors with The Rock, Kanye, Paula Abdul, Matthew Broaderick and Danny Elfman.

 

Certainly the first celebrity death I really remember was John Lennon. I was 15 at the time and Lennon was everywhere. Double Fantasy had been released to very good reviews and he was back giving interviews after being out of sight for so long. There were rumours he would tour again and who knows, maybe the Beatles get back together again. Then it was all gone, announced by Howard Cosell on MNF - and I was watching that too. I remember the wall-to-wall Lennon songs on the radio and what Springsteen said before his show the next night in Piladelphia was right: "If it wasn't for John Lennon a lot of us would be some place much different tonight." And that's true. what would rock and roll look like if he and McCartney had never met? Or if the band had imploded in Hamburg? Or if Brian Epstein had cashed all his chips in on McCartney and pulled him from the band to be a solo artist?

I'm rambling but that's a rock and roll thing too!

 

The thought that Reba McEntire is a national treasure is flat-out absurd.

 

I know I've read that many potential honorees flat out refused to accept while Trump is President - whether he is there or not.

 

I equate in a lot of ways the deaths of Lennon and John Bonham. They both died weeks apart in 1980 and I found out about both at school the next day.

 

Dana Reeve, a semi-celebrity and part-time actress, died less than two years after her husband Christopher Reeve died. She was a non-smoker who died of lung cancer.
The cruelty of that, on multiple levels, after what she and her family had been through, was chilling.

The other one: Elvis. Never a big fan, though I admire his music and what he meant to rock history. I am old enough to remember vividly where I was when I heard about it, what I was doing. It packs a greater punch with each passing year, because every year his age, 42, gets younger (that is, seems younger to me as I grow older). And the whole mixing of drugs and alcohol, with no one stepping in or slapping sense into him, is something many of us face among our own family and friends -- except we know a LITTLE better how to deal with such downward spirals now. And then there's the eternally unscratched itch of wondering what might have been, in terms of his music, his prominence and his reputation, had he lived into his 60s, 70s or beyond.

Next week (1/8) we'll pass what would have been his 84th birthday -- 42 years here, 42 years gone -- and it strikes me more than ever as an awful shame, how things went.