Died On This Date (December 2, 1986) Desi Arnaz / World Famous Bandleader and TV Star
themusicsover Desi Arnaz
March 2, 1917 – December 2, 1986
Desi Arnaz was a world famous Cuban-born singer, musician, band leader, television actor and producer who became a household name thanks to his starring role in the 196os sitcom, I Love Lucy. Arnaz was playing guitar for Xavier Cugat when, in 1940, he was cast in the film version of the Broadway musical, Too Many Girls. It was there that he met future wife and I Love Lucy co-star, Lucille Ball. The weekly comedy program premiered in October of 1951 and went on to become one of television’s most beloved shows. Besides the show’s world famous theme song, Arnaz and his orchestra performed many Latin jazz numbers on the program, most of which have been released on album. The show’s success lead to the couple forming their own production company which developed several groundbreaking techniques that have become standard in the industry. Desilu Productions went on to produce such shows as the Andy Griffith Show, Star Trek, The Untouchables and the Danny Thomas Show. After I Love Lucy went off the air in 1960, Arnaz mostly retreated to behind the scenes to run the studio. On December 2, 1986, Desi Arnaz died of lung cancer at the age of 69.
What You Should Own
Odetta Holmes was a politically charged folk, blues and gospel singer-songwriter and activist who has been called “the voice of the civil rights movement.” Most prominent during the folk movement of the ’60s, Odetta was not only a peer, but an influence on such folk greats as Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Harry Belafonte. She was born in Birmingham, AL but raised in Los Angeles where she studied music and received opera singing lessons as a young teen. After taking a stab at musical theater, she turned her focus to folk singing in 1950 and set out across America to sing at all the usual suspect folk clubs and gatherings. She began releasing albums in 1954, and over the course of her career, recorded for such highly regarded labels as Fantasy, Folkways, RCA Victor, and Vanguard Records who continue to keep her legacy alive thanks to the tireless work of Morgana Kennedy, Dan Sell and Stephen Brower. In September of 1999, President Bill Clinton presented Odetta with the National Endowment for the Arts’ National Medal of Arts, the highest honor presented to an artist on behalf of the American people. Odetta stayed active as a performer and activist up until her final days. In 2008, she embarked on what would be her final tour of North America at the age of 77. Odetta ill in late 2008 and though planning to perform at President Barack Obama’s inauguration in January of 2009, she died of heart disease on December 2, 2008.
David Blue was a folk singer songwriter who came to prominence as part of the Greenwich Village scene that also produced Eric Andersen, Bob Dylan and 
Eric Woolfson was a much respected Scottish musician, songwriter and singer who is best remembered as one-half of the driving force behind the Alan Parsons Project. Woolfson started out mostly as a songwriter, penning songs for the likes of Marianne Faithfull, Peter Noone and the Tremeloes. In the early ’70s, he got into artist management, guiding the careers of Carl Douglas of “Kung Fu Fighting” fame and an up-and-coming producer, Alan Parsons who had previously engineered the Beatles’ Abbey Road and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. In 1975, the two began collaborating creatively and the Alan Parsons Project was born. Over the next decade, the group released such popular prog rock albums as I Robot, Pyramid and Eye in the Sky. Overall, they sold in excess of 40 million albums. By the early ’90s, Woolfson and Parsons parted ways with Woolfson moving into musical theater. Woolfson was later diagnosed with cancer and died from the disease on December 2, 2009. He was 64.