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Jill Sobule
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Obituaries: Singer/Activist Jill Sobule, The Alarm's Mike Peters, Hall of Famer Joe Louis Walker
This week we also acknowledge the passing of jazz vocalist Andy Bey, English folk artist Wizz Jones and former Savoy Brown singer Chris Youlden.
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Jill Sobule, the acclaimed U.S. folk-pop singer and human rights activist, died in a house fire on May 1. She was 66 years old.
A Billboard obituary notes that "The groundbreaking artist, who identified as bisexual, began her career with her 1990 debut album Things Here Are Different. Five years later, she broke out with her self-titled 1995 album and its hit single 'I Kissed a Girl,' which peaked at No. 67 on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached the top 20 of the Alternative Airplay chart (then known as Modern Rock Tracks). Meanwhile, the LP’s other big single, 'Supermodel,' was included on the soundtrack to Clueless.
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"Other albums in Sobule’s discography include 1997’s Happy Town, 2000’s Pink Pearl, 2004’s The Folk Years 2003-2003 and Underdog Victorious, 2008’s Jill Sobule Sings Prozac and the Platypus, 2014’s Dottie’s Charms and 2018’s Nostalgia Kills. The singer-songwriter was an early proponent of crowdfunding, with her 2009 album California Years entirely financed via donations from fans."
Sobule had recently worked on an autobiographical musical F*ck 7th Grade, which earned a Drama Desk Award nomination for outstanding musical in 2023. It will be released as an original cast recording on June 6 alongside a special 30th-anniversary vinyl reissue of Jill Sobule.
Sobule was exceptionally respected by her peers, who have offered tributes on social media.
Noted Canadian folk singer-songwriter Steve Poltz posted an eloquent tribute on Facebook that reads, in part: "There are certain singer-songwriters that grab you and have a way with words and delivery and you just instantly fall in love with them. Jill just had it. I first met her back in the '90s and she was simply the coolest."
"She had just sent me a video message in February saying that we needed to do a tour together. And why hadn’t it happened yet. With her typical amazing delivery and east coast accent with attitude it really made me smile. I’m so sad our tour will never happen. It would’ve been so fun to listen to her play every night and I just know we would’ve written some songs. I would’ve learned so much."
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"We really lost a good one folks. One of the best to ever do it. Up there with the great Dan Bern. Seriously legendary. She’s leaving quite a legacy of music. Now she’s a shooting star somewhere up there. Floating around. Hopefully spreading joy. Any interaction with Jill always made me smile. She’s a gem and a peach and now a long gone troubadour. We were lucky to have her. Rest in peace lovely Jill Sobule. The world is a little bit empty today."
On X, Canadian singer-songwriter and author Paul Myers stated that "Jill Sobule had a song called 'Bitter' that spoke to me when I was a frustrated musician still trying to make it in the music business, years ago. That song frankly saved my life. Rest easy, Jill. We’ll miss you forever."
According to a release, a formal memorial honouring Sobule’s life and legacy will be planned for later this summer.
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Mike Peters, frontman of the Welsh rock band The Alarm,died on aged 66, of blood cancer.
Peters was first diagnosed with the blood cancer chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) more than 30 years ago. He underwent numerous drug treatment, rounds of chemotherapy and experimental therapy to treat his cancer.
Alongside his wife, he co-founded Love Hope Strength, a cancer charity to encourage stem cell donation. Through its Get On the List campaigns, publicised at rock concerts, the charity has added more than 250,000 people to stem cell registers worldwide.
A Billboard obituary reports that "Peters was the author of such strident 1980s alt rock anthems as 'Blaze of Glory,' 'Spirit of ’76,' 'Sixty Eight Guns' and 'The Stand.' Peters was the lone remaining original member of the punk-turned-rootsy rock group formed in Rhyl, Wales in 1977 (originally known as The Toilets), after Peters was inspired by a Sex Pistols show he attended in 1976. Teaming up with childhood friend and bassist Eddie McDonald, as well as drummer Nigel Twist and guitarist Dave Sharp — initially as Seventeen — the group gelled as The Alarm in 1981, when they were signed to Miles Copeland’s I.R.S. Records, the early indie rock home of groups including R.E.M., The Go-Go’s, Fine Young Cannibals, Wall of Voodoo and more."
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"They got a crucial break when U2’s agent saw them live and invited the band to open for the then-ascending Irish group in December 1981. Their sound — a mix of acoustic roots rock, new wave balladry and howling, uplifting anthems — began to gain traction as they supported U2 on that band’s 1983 War tour.
"Setting the tone for the next two decades, the Alarm’s 1984 debut album, Declaration, also featured such fist-in-the-air shout-along hymns to fortitude and fight as 'Where Were You Hiding When the Storm Broke?,' 'We Are the Light,' 'Blaze of Glory' and one of the Alarm’s most beloved calls to arms: 'Sixty Eight Guns.'
The group expanded their sound on 1985’s sophomore effort, Strength, and would release three more albums during their initial run, including 1987’s Eye of the Hurricane — featuring their signature ballad, “Rain in the Summertime” — as well as 1989’s Tony Visconti-produced Change, which got them their first and only Billboard Hot 100 top 50 hit with “Sold Me Down the River” (No. 50). That album also represented one of the group’s chart peaks in America, topping out at No. 75 on the Billboard 200 album chart; Strength hit No. 39 in February 1986 and Declaration ran up to No. 50 in April of 1984."
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The Alarm split up after the release of their fifth, and final, LP by the original lineup, 1991’s Raw. Peters continued his musical march with the Poets of Justice band featuring his wife, Jules Peters, on keyboards, as well as releasing his first solo album, Breathe, in 1994, one year before his first cancer diagnosis.
in 2019, Mike Peters received an MBE for voluntary services to cancer care in north Wales and abroad.
Recently retired NDP MP, author and veteran folk-rock songsmith Charlie Angus (Grievous Angels) posted this on social media: "Thinking of Mike Peters and his family/comrades. He has gone to the angels. We [punk band L'Etranger] played a wild gig with the Alarm back in the day at Toronto' punk palace Larry's Hideaway on their first Canadian tour. He is at peace after a long battle."
Andy (Andrew Wideman) Bey Jr., a Grammy-nominated American jazz singer and pianist renowned for his baritone voice, died on April 26, at age 85.
A New York Times obituary notes that "Bey's silky, rich bass-baritone and four-octave vocal range placed him among the greatest interpreters of the American songbook since Nat King Cole, his role model."
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Bey was born in Newark., and raised along with his eight older siblings by his mother, Victoria (Johnson) Wideman. He worked on the 1959/1960 television show Startime with Connie Francis, and sang for Louis Jordan. At age 17, he formed a trio with his siblings Salome Bey and Geraldine Bey (de Haas) called Andy and the Bey Sisters. Salome Bey went on to become a musical legend in Toronto.
The trio went on a 16-month tour of Europe, and Chet Baker's 1988 documentary Let's Get Lost includes footage of Bey and his sisters delighting a Parisian audience. The trio recorded three albums (one for RCA Victor in 1961 and two for Prestige in 1964 and 1965) before breaking up in 1967. Bey also worked with Horace Silver, Max Roach and Gary Bartz.
In 1973, Bey and Dee Dee Bridgewater were the featured vocalists on Stanley Clarke's album Children of Forever. Later, Bey recorded the album Experience and Judgment (1974), which was influenced by Indian music. He then returned to hard bop, and recorded covers of music by non-jazz musicians, such as Nick Drake. In 1976, Bey performed in a Manhattan theatre production of Adrienne Kennedy's A Rat's Mass directed by Cecil Taylor.
Bey's other albums include 1996's Ballads, Blues & Bey, one that returned him to prominence, Tuesdays in Chinatown (2001), American Song (2004) and Ain't Necessarily So (2007). His final release was 2014's Pages from an Imaginary Life.
Bey received the 2003 Jazz Vocalist of the Year award by the Jazz Journalists Association. His album American Song received a Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album in 2005.
Wizz (Raymond Ronald) Jones, an acclaimed English folk guitarist, singer and songwriter, died on April 27, at age 86.
A Guardian obituary notes that "Jones never did enjoy the success of many of his contemporaries, but was a folk scene hero with a dedicated following, particularly among other musicians. In his 2010 autobiography, Life, Keith Richards describes meeting Wizz while he was at art college, before joining the Rolling Stones: “Wizz Jones used to drop in, with a Jesus haircut and a beard. Great folk picker, great guitar picker … I think I learned Cocaine from him – the song and that crucial fingerpicking lick of the period, not the dope …”
He also impressed such peers as Martin Carthy and Ralph McTell and, much later, Bruce Springsteen. The Guardian reported that "When Bruce Springsteen played the Berlin Olympiastadion in May 2012, he began with a powerful song about an East Berliner celebrating freedom. Few, if any, in the crowd would have realised that the original version of 'When I Leave Berlin' was written in 1971 by an English guitarist and singer-songwriter, whom Springsteen failed to mention.
Jones learned by listening to American heroes such as Blind Lemon Jefferson, Big Bill Broonzy and Derroll Adams, as well as Davey Graham and Long John Baldry in the UK, and was the archetypal troubadour; he played in the London coffee houses and folk clubs, then took off to France, Morocco or his beloved Cornwall.
His debut solo album, Wizz Jones (1969), was recorded for a major label, United Artists. In the 70s he recorded for other labels including CBS, Village Thing (the folk indie started by the musician and writer Ian A Anderson) and for labels in Germany. He collaborated with now-famous friends, including McTell, John Renbourn and Bert Jansch, and started a band, Lazy Farmer, that included his wife, Sandy. And he began recording his own powerful songs, including When I Leave Berlin and his exquisite, highly personal song to Sandy, Happiness Was Free (1976).
He released his first album in the US, Dazzling Stranger (1995) and toured there for the first time. A major tour with Sonic Youth in 2001 was cancelled because of 9/11; his plane was forced to turn back.
In later years, his career took an upturn. In 2013 he performed at the Bert Jansch memorial concert at the Royal Festival Hall, London, and toured and recorded with Renbourn. Their album Joint Control (2016) was released after Renbourn’s death. With his old friend McTell, he recorded About Time (2016) and About Time Too (2017).
In 2019, Jones was presented with a lifetime achievement award at the BBC Folk Awards.
Joe Louis (born Louis Joseph) Walker Jr. was an American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and producer, died on April 30, of a cardiac-related illness, at age 75.
In its obituary, Blues Rock Review notes that "With a career spanning more than six decades, Walker’s electrifying guitar work, angelic voice, and reflective songwriting left an indelible mark on American music and touched audiences around the globe."
Billboard once described his style as “blowing all over the map…gutbucket blues, joyous gospel, Rolling Stones-style rock crunch, and aching R&B,” adding, “Walker’s guitar playing is fine and fierce.” NPR Music once described him as "powerful, soul-stirring, fierce and gritty...a legendary boundary-pushing icon of modern blues."
BRR also stated that "Widely regarded as a 'musician’s musician,' Walker earned his place in the pantheon of great electric blues singer-guitarists alongside B.B. King, Buddy Guy, and Robert Cray. Herbie Hancock hailed him as 'a national treasure.' Chick Corea, with characteristic wit, dubbed him 'the Chick Corea of Blues,' while Aretha Franklin honored him simply — and definitively — as 'The Bluesman.'"
Walker was a very prolific recording artist, releasing 30 albums, spanning from his 1986 debut, Cold Is The Night to his final album, 2023's Weight of the World. Along this journey, he recorded for such noted labels as HighTone, Alligator, JSP, Telarc, Verve/Gitanes/Polygram and Canadian roots imprint Stony Plain.
Walker became a known quantity within the Bay Area music scene by the age of 16. He played with John Lee Hooker, Buddy Miles, Otis Rush, Thelonious Monk, The Soul Stirrers, Willie Dixon, Charlie Musselwhite, Steve Miller, Nick Lowe, John Mayall, Earl Hooker, Muddy Waters, Jimi Hendrix and more. By 1968, he had forged a friendship with Mike Bloomfield; they were roommates for many years until Bloomfield's untimely death.
He then quit music, enrolling at San Francisco State University, achieving a degree in Music and English. Throughout this time, Walker was regularly performing with The Spiritual Corinthians Gospel Quartet. After a 1985 performance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, he was inspired to return to his blues roots whereupon he formed the Bosstalkers and signed to the HighTone label.
His debut album, Cold Is The Night, led to worldwide touring schedule, plus four more releases in succession for HighTone. Walker was then signed by Polygram to their Verve/Gitanes record label, beginning with Blues Survivor in 1993. By then, Walker had forged an eclectic sound, incorporating gospel, jazz, soul, funk and rock influences with his trademark blues.
1993's B.B. King's Grammy Award-winning Blues Summit album featured a duet with Walker (a Walker original, "Everybody's Had the Blues") and a live DVD release featured another duet with Walker ( "T-Bone Shuffle").
Walker's 1994 album, JLW, featured guests such as James Cotton, Branford Marsalis, and the Tower of Power horn section. During this period, he played such major global festivals as North Sea Jazz, Montreux, Glastonbury, San Francisco, Russian River Jazz, Monterey, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage, Byron Bay, Australia, and more.
He played the inauguration for George W. Bush, inducted B.B. King for President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton into the Kennedy Centre Honors and played many major TV shows.
Three Walker albums were co-produced with Steve Cropper and a star-studded guestlist on Great Guitars included Bonnie Raitt, Buddy Guy, Taj Mahal, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Otis Rush, Robert Lockwood, Jr., Steve Cropper, Tower of Power, and Ike Turner.
Also in 1996, Walker played guitar on James Cotton's Deep in the Blues, a Grammy Award winner for Best Traditional Blues Album. Walker won his third Blues Music Award for Band of the Year (1996) which was preceded by two similar awards for Contemporary Male Artist of the Year (1988 and 1991).
In March 2008, Walker signed to Edmonton-based roots music label Stony Plain Records. Co-founder and head Holger Petersen told Billboard Canada that "I was a fan of Joe Louis Walker for many years before we started working together in 2007. After early success, Joe had relocated to France for two years and was ready to move back and reestablish himself in the U.S. I approached him with the idea of having Duke Robillard produce him for Stony Plain. I was grateful that an established artist like Joe wanted to sign with a fledgling Canadian label.
"Our first project together was Witness To The Blues (2008) followed by Between A Rock and The Blues (2009). That album featured Kevin Eubanks (The Tonight Show) as a special guest and earned five nominations and won Blues Album of the Year at the Blues Music Awards in Memphis in 2010. Our last project together was a live album from the Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise. I later put out a compilation called Joe Louis Walker - The Best of The Stony Plain Years.
"I'm very proud that we recorded some timeless music together and remained friends when he left the label. I last spoke with him a couple of weeks ago when he told me of the health issues he had overcome in the last couple of years. He was upbeat and sounded strong."
A host of prestigious organizations honored Walker throughout his career. He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2013, named a USA Fellow by United States Artists, and received multiple W.C. Handy Awards and Blues Music Awards. He was also recognized with San Francisco’s esteemed Bammy Awards and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Mississippi Valley Blues Society. His 2015 album Everybody Wants a Piece was nominated for a Grammy.
Walker was also active as a record producer, including work with top Toronto blues band The Sidemen. He produced the band's second album, When The Sun Goes Down, released in 1995 on local label Dark Light Records.
The head of that label, veteran Toronto concert promoter Serge Sloimowitz, tells Billboard Canada that he kept in touch with his friend. "I was talking to him a couple weeks ago about a new blues series of concerts that we will produce in 2026, and we were working on the list. Love him a lot. We knew each other when we were both in our early 20s. I feel so sad at the news."
Christopher (Thomas) Youlden, an English blues rock singer best known for his work with Savoy Brown, died on April 4, of bronchial pneumonia, at the age of 82.
Youlden recorded four albums with British veterans Savoy Brown from 1967 until 1970: Getting to the Point (1968), Blue Matter (1969), A Step Further (1969), and Raw Sienna (1970). He also played piano in the band and wrote many of their songs, including six out of nine songs on Raw Sienna.
As a solo artist, he went on to record six albums, the last being 2018's Closing Time, credited to Chris Youlden & The Slammers.
Read a 2018 interview with Youlden here.
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