(Above: Dick Biondi – front left – was the last surviving member of the WCFL airstaff in this photo.)

2023 is in the books. As we have seen in recent years, many parts of our pop culture, as they age, leave us each year. This past year saw some big names pass on. As it was another frightfully busy year for me, I missed many of them on this blog. (Last year’s resolution to post more here was less successful than I had hoped, but a bit better than 2022.) As I did a year ago, we’ll use this post to catch up on the voices that were silenced in 2023.

(Note: Dates are sometimes flexible and subject to when deaths are reported by family. Also, this list is by no means complete. Feel free to add any that I missed in the comments.)

January

1/1 – Fred White, drummer for Earth, Wind and Fire, age 67.

1/6 – Jeff Blackburn, guitarist for Moby Grape, age 77.

1/9 – Les Brown, Jr., musician in his own right and son of Les Brown (who led the Band of Renown), age 82.

1/10 – Dennis Budimir, guitarist for The Wrecking Crew, age 84.

1/10 – Jeff Beck, guitarist for The Yardbirds and the Jeff Beck Group, age 78.

1/12 – Lisa Marie Presley, sometime musician and famous daughter, age 54.

1/12 – Robbie Bachman, drummer for Bachman-Turner Overdrive, age 69.

1/17 – Van Conner, bassist for The Screaming Trees, age 55.

1/18 – David Crosby, founder of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, age 81.

1/23 – Top Topham, original guitarist for The Yardbirds. He was replaced by this Clapton fellow. He was 75.

1/26 – Dean Daughtry, keyboard player for the Atlanta Rhythm Section, age 76.

1/27 – Floyd Sneed, drummer for Three Dog Night, age 80.

1/28 – Tom Verlaine, guitarist for Television, age 73.

1/29 – Barrett Strong, songwriter and known for his hit “Money (That’s What I Want),” age 81.

1/31 – Charlie Thomas, singer for The Drifters, age 85.

February

2/5 – Lillian Walker, singer for The Exciters, age 78.

2/6 – Phil Spalding, bassist for GTR, age 65.

2/8 – Burt Bachrach, songwriter. That was one that I covered here. He was 94.

2/12 – Trugoy the Dove, rapper for De La Soul, age 54.

2/13 – Huey “Piano” Smith, songwriter and singer, age 89. His is the original “Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie-Woogie Flu.“

2/16 – Chuck Jackson, singer known for the original version of “Any Day Now,” age 85.

March

3/2 – Wayne Shorter, jazz saxophonist, age 89.

3/2 – Steve Mackey, bassist for Pulp, age 56.

3/3 – David Lindley, college radio staple, age 78.

3/4 – Artie Barnes, half of Barnes and Barnes. “Fish Heads” remains the most-requested song ever on The Dr. Demento Show, and I aired the video in college. He was 69.

3/5 – Gary Rossington, guitarist for Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Rossington Collins Band, age 71.

3/10 – Jerry Samuels, a/k/a Napoleon XIV, infamous for “They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha Ha!”, age 84.

3/14 – Bobby Caldwell, R&B singer, age 71. At my first radio gig in Joliet there was a guy that called every Saturday morning at about 2am to request “What You Won’t Do For Love.”

3/17 – Fuzzy Haskins, singer for Parliament Funkadelic, age 81.

3/27 – Howie Kane, singer for Jay and the Americans, age 81.

3/29 – Brian Gillis, singer for LFO, age 47.

April

4/2 – Seymour Stein, founder of Sire Records, age 80.

4/7 – Guy Bailey, guitarist for the Quireboys, age unknown. I played “7 O’Clock” quite a bit when it came out, and then put it on my 80s/90s station for my students. Hey, I like it.

4/7 – Ian Bairnson, guitarist for the Alan Parsons Project, age 69.

4/9 – Chuck Morris, drummer for Lotus, age 46.

4/16 – Ahmad Jamal, jazz pianist, age 92.

4/17 – April Stevens, singer with Nino Tempo, age 93.

4/25 – Harry Belafonte, calypso singer and civil rights figure, age 96.

4/25 – Ralph Humphrey, drummer for The Mothers of Invention, age 79.

4/28 – Tim Bachman, guitarist for Bachman-Turner Overdrive, age 71.

May

5/1 – Gordon Lightfoot, Canadian pop legend, age 84. Every November in Michigan you are required to play “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” There were others I preferred.

5/3 – Linda Lewis, British backup singer for many acts over the years, age 72.

5/7 – Sean Keane, fiddler for The Chieftains, age 76.

5/9 – Jon Povey, member of British group The Pretty Things, age 80.

5/19 – Pete Brown, songwriting partner with Jack Bruce of Cream, age 82.

5/19 – Andy Rourke, bassist for The Smiths, age 59.

5/21 – Ed Ames, singer and actor, age 95. That one we covered here.

5/23 – Isaac “Redd” Holt, jazz drummer and one-half of Young-Holt Unlimited, age 91.

5/23 – Sheldon Reynolds, guitarist for Earth, Wind & Fire, age 63.

5/24 – Tina Turner, singer and survivor, age 83. I covered that one here.

5/31 – Dickie Harrell, drummer for Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps, age 82.

June

6/1 – Cynthia Weil, legendary American songwriter, age 82.

6/4 – George Winston, jazz pianist, age 74.

6/5 – Astrud Gilberto, Brazilian singer, age 83. The older I get, the more I understand how “The Girl from Ipanema” got away with the Grammy for Song Of the Year.

6/13 – Blackie Onassis, drummer for Urge Overkill, age 57.

6/23 – Lee Rauch, drummer for Megadeth, age 58.

July

7/5 – George Tickner, guitarist for Journey, age 76.

7/6 – Peter Nero, pianist and conductor of the Philly Pops, age 89. He had a hit with “Summer of ’42” in 1971.

7/16 – Jane Birkin, French actress and one-time songstress, age 76. You listened to her record, perhaps with the lights off and the shades drawn.

7/21 – Tony Bennett, singer, age 96. I should have written about this one, as there’s a Tony Bennett record in that collection of 78s I inherited when I was ten. I’ve been listening to his work for an awful long time.

7/26 – Sinead O’Connor, singer, age 56. There was an awful lot of her on my college radio stations over the years, and many others have written more poignant pieces about her passing.

7/26 – Randy Meisner, bassist for The Eagles, age 77.

August

8/4 – John Gosling, keyboardist for The Kinks through the 1970s, age 75.

8/7 – Toussaint McCall, R&B singer, age 89.

8/7 – David LaFlamme, singer for It’s a Beautiful Day, age 82.

8/7 – DJ Casper, Chicago club DJ who gave us the “Cha-cha Slide,” age 58. Oh, you know it. Have you been to a ballgame and heard a voice say “everybody clap your hands?”

8/9 – Robbie Robertson, guitarist for The Band, age 80. His genius work is all over Bob Dylan’s “electric” albums of the mid-60s, too.

8/12 – Magoo, rapper with Timbaland and Magoo, age 50.

8/13 – Clarence Avant, founder of Sussex Records, age 92.

8/18 – Ray Hildebrand, “Paul” of Paul and Paula, age 82. He also released a tune called “The Way of the DJ” that was not a hit but is right up there with Harry Chapin’s “WOLD” as a cautionary tale.

8/24 – Bernie Marsden, guitarist for Whitesnake, age 72.

8/30 – Jack Sonni, Dire Straits, age 68.

September

9/1 – Jimmy Buffett, singer and cultural experience for many, age 76.

9/4 – Steve Harwell, singer for Smash Mouth, age 56.

9/4 – Gary Wright, musician with Spooky Tooth and solo artist, age 80. It’s just not Wayne’s World without “Dream Weaver.”

9/6 – Larry Chance, singer for The Earls, age 82.

9/10 – Matthew Stewart, trumpeter for Streetlight Manifesto, age 41.

9/13 – Roger Whittaker, singer, age 87. A staple of every easy-listening shop I ever worked in, and the station ID for WGN-TV for years.

9/20 – Katherine Anderson, singer for The Marvelettes, age 79.

9/23 – Terry Kirkman, songwriter and founding member of The Association, age 83. Just this fall I got a class of college students to understand how the last key change in “Cherish” – a song he wrote – will haunt your soul for days. They got it, but I think I lost them on the lyrics to “Along Comes Mary.”

9/30 – Carol Buschmann, singer for The Chordettes, age 96.

October

10/11 – Rudolph Isley, songwriter and singer for The Isley Brothers, age 84.

10/18 – Dwight Twilley, singer/songwriter, age 72. “Girls” was a huge early MTV hit, at least in my head.

10/23 – Angelo Bruschini, guitarist for Massive Attack, age 62.

November

11/3 – Pete Garner, bassist for The Stone Roses, age 61.

11/20 – Mars Williams, saxophonist for The Waitresses and The Psychedelic Furs, age 68.

11/22 – Jean Knight, singer, age 80. Of course you remember “Mr. Big Stuff,” which still sounds great.

11/26 – Geordie Walker, guitarist for Killing Joke, age 64.

11/30 – Shane McGowan, singer for The Pogues, age 65. “Fairytale of New York” will forever carry memories of the Christmas that I spent in New Zealand, where it’s a lot more popular. In case you missed his funeral, they performed it in church – and it’s as fantastic as that sentence reads.

December

12/3 – Myles Goodwin, singer for April Wine, age 75. Another 97X throwback.

12/5 – Denny Laine, founder of The Moody Blues and guitarist for Wings, age 79. That’s his vocal on “Go Now.”

12/11 – Jeffrey Foskett, later singer with The Beach Boys, age 67.

12/16 – Colin Burgess, first drummer for AC/DC, age 77.

12/18 – Ronnie Caryl, guitarist for Flaming Youth and for Phil Collins, age 70.

12/22 – Laura Lynch, singer for The Dixie Chicks, age 65.

12/26 – Tom Smothers, singer, comedian, and television personality, age 86. Plenty to read about him here.

12/29 – Les McCann, jazz pianist, age 88.

12/29 – Maurice Hines, singer and dancer, age 80.

In addition to the musical acts listed above, 2023 was a particularly hard year in the radio world. We lost a lot of the voices who brought us these acts in one form or another, including many that I knew and/or heard myself. They include:

1/20 – Jerry Blavat, “The Geator with the Heater, various Philadephia stations, age 82.

1/22 – Lin Brehmer, WXRT/Chicago, age 69. Lin hadn’t yet gone to mornings when I was an intern there. He – and all of the airstaff – were absolutely wonderful to all of us kids, and I always hope when I send interns out into the world that they meet personalities half as nice.

2/20 – Lewis Largent, KROQ/LA and MTV, age 58.

6/26 – Dick Biondi, WLS, WCFL, and WJMK/Chicago among many, age 90. Dick was the first disk jockey in America to play a Beatles record in 1963. More on his career here.

6/28 – Bob Shannon, WCBS-FM/New York, age 74.

10/21 – Dusty Street, KROQ/LA among many and Sirius/XM, age 77.

12/17 – Jim Ladd, KMET/LA, WNEW/New York, and Sirius/XM, age 75. Subject of “The Last DJ” by Tom Petty.

12/20 – Ken Calvert, WXYZ and WCSX/Detroit, age 72. He was also longtime PA announcer for the Detroit Pistons.

12/21 – Ian Case Punnett, 97X/Quad Cities, WGN/Chicago, and host of “Coast to Coast,” age 63. I just missed working with Ian at the X, but listened to him a lot, and it made me want to work there. He later became an academic, and we corresponded briefly over that. We were part of an extremely small (like single-digits) subset of “rock jocks who later got PhDs.” He was also a fellow media advisor, and I know his students miss him.

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As I mentioned earlier, I tried to get a little more content here in 2023 than in 2022. That was a low bar to clear. I do plan to get more content coming through here in 2024 and thank all of those who have been stopping by here for tales of college radio, largely forgotten pop music, or whatever the draw is. In 2023 this site saw readership from over 15,000 visitors from what may be a record 108 different countries and territories. I do hope you’ll wander back and even drop a line every so often.