mick laBriola

Peetah Morgan, the lead singer for Grammy Award-winning reggae group, Morgan Heritage, has died. The group, which comprises the children of late elder statesman of reggae music, Denroy Morgan, posted the announcement to social media this afternoon. “It is out of sincere love that we share that our beloved husband, father, son and brother and lead singer of Morgan Heritage, Peter Anthony Morgan, has ascended today, February 25. Jah come and save us from ourselves because love is the only way,” the statement said in part. Without giving any details regarding the cause of death, the statement concluded: “Our family thanks you in advance for your overwhelming love and support and we as k for your continued prayers as we go through this process. We also ask that you please respect our privacy during this time of healing.”

Oumou Sangaré (Bambara: Umu Sangare; born 25 February 1968) is a Malian Wassoulou singer of Fulani (Fula) descent. She is often referred to as “The Songbird of Wassoulou”. Wassoulou is a historical region south of the Niger River, where the music descends from age-old traditional song, often accompanied by a calabash.

Stars are usually born in clusters, and the brightest and most massive of these stars typically glow blue. Less-bright, non-blue stars like our Sun surely also exist in this M41 star cluster but are harder to see. A few bright orange-appearing red giant stars are visible. The red-light filaments are emitted by diffuse hydrogen gas, a color that was specifically filtered and enhanced in this image. In a hundred million years or so, the bright blue stars will have exploded in supernovas and disappeared, while the slightly different trajectories of the fainter stars will cause this picturesque open cluster to disperse. Similarly, billions of years ago, our own Sun was likely born into a star cluster like M41, but it has long since drifted apart from its sister stars. The featured image was captured over four hours with Chilescope T2 in Chile.

Ralph Edmund Stanley (February 25, 1927 – June 23, 2016 McClure, VA) was an American bluegrass artist, known for his distinctive singing and banjo playing. He began playing music in 1946, originally with his older brother Carter Stanley as part of The Stanley Brothers, and most often as the leader of his band, The Clinch Mountain Boys. Ralph was also known as Dr. Ralph Stanley.

He was part of the first generation of bluegrass musicians and was inducted into both the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor and the Grand Ole Opry.

René Thomas (25 February 1926 – 3 January 1975) was a Belgian jazz guitarist. In the early 1950s, he moved to Paris, France, and became part of the modern jazz scene, playing in the style of Jimmy Raney. He spent brief periods in the United States from 1958 to 1962. Back in Europe, he toured and recorded with Chet Baker, Bobby Jaspar, Kenny Clarke, Eddy Louiss, Stan Getz, Lucky Thompson, Sonny Criss, Jacques Pelzer, Lou Bennett, Charles “Lolo” Bellonzi, and Ingfried Hoffmann.

Thomas died of a heart attack in Santander, Spain, at the age of 48 on 3 January 1975.

Ida M. Cox (Prather; February 26, 1888 or 1896 – November 10, 1967 Toccoa, GA) was an American singer and vaudeville performer, best known for her blues performances and recordings. She was billed as “The Uncrowned Queen of the Blues”.

Nicholas Christian Hopkins (24 February 1944 – 6 September 1994) was an English pianist and organist. He performed on many popular and enduring British and American rock music recordings from the 1960s to the 1990s, including on songs recorded by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, the Kinks, the Steve Miller Band, Jefferson Airplane, Rod Stewart, George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, The Hollies, Cat Stevens, Carly Simon, Harry Nilsson, Joe Walsh, Peter Frampton, Jerry Garcia, Jeff Beck, Joe Cocker, Art Garfunkel, Badfinger, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Donovan. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest studio pianists in the history of popular rock music. Hopkins died on 6 September 1994, at the age of 50, in Nashville, Tennessee, from complications resulting from intestinal surgery related to his lifelong battle with Crohn’s disease.

Michel Jean Legrand (24 February 1932 – 26 January 2019) was a French musical composer, arranger, conductor, jazz pianist, and singer. Legrand was a prolific composer, having written over 200 film and television scores, in addition to many songs. His scores for two of the films of French New Wavedirector Jacques Demy, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), earned Legrand his first Academy Award nominations. Legrand won his first Oscar for the song “The Windmills of Your Mind” from The Thomas Crown Affair (1968),and additional Oscars for Summer of ’42 (1971) and Barbra Streisand‘s Yentl (1983).

David “Fathead” Newman (February 24, 1933 – January 20, 2009 Corsicana, TX) was an American jazz and rhythm-and-blues saxophonist, who made numerous recordings as a session musician and leader, but is best known for his work as a sideman on seminal 1950s and early 1960s recordings by Ray Charles.

The AllMusic Guide to Jazz wrote that “there have not been many saxophonists and flutists more naturally soulful than David ‘Fathead’ Newman.”Newman was a leading proponent of the “Texas Tenor” saxophone style, a big-toned, bluesyapproach popularized by jazz tenor players from that state.