Died On This Date (November 7, 1986) Tracy Pew / The Birthday Party
themusicsover Tracy Pew
December 19, 1957 – November 7, 1986
Tracy Pew is best remembered as the bassist for late ’70s / early ’80s Australian post punk goth rock band, The Birthday Party. Although the band never achieved much more than limited cult status, it’s individual members, including Nick Cave, went on to varying levels of success after the band split up in 1983. It was then that Pew all but retired from the music business, opting instead to go to university where he studied philosophy and literature. He did resurface over the next couple of years to participate in a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds album as well as one by Lydia Lunch. On November 7, 1986, Tracy Pew died of an epileptic seizure at the age of 28.
What You Should Own
Jody Reynolds had one of rockabilly’s earliest massive hits with 1958’s “Endless Sleep.” It was one of rock ‘n roll’s first “teen tragedy” songs. The single reached #5 on the Billboard singles chart and sold over 1 million copies. He followed it up with “Fire of Love” later that year. The song charted, but failed to come close to the success of “Endless Sleep.” Reynolds released several more records over the course of his career, but none were ever able to get him back up on top. He retired from the music business during the ’70s, and in 1999, he was elected to the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. He was 75 when he died of liver cancer on November 7, 2008.
Hank Thompson was a honky tonk and western swing band leader who, over a career that spanned an amazing 60+ years, sold more than 60 million albums. After his discharge from the Navy during WWII, Thompson decided to pursue a career making music. In 1952, he released his first #1 hit, “The Wild Side of Life.” The song sat at the top of the country charts for 15 weeks and has been covered by the likes of 
Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler was was a Green Beret medic who served for the US Army in Vietnam. In 1966, Sadler co-wrote and sang lead on “Ballad of the Green Berets.” Ironically, the pro-military song became a massive hit during an era mostly associated with the anti war movement. The song sat at the top of the charts for five weeks and sold approximately nine million copies. Sadler later became a published author, writing more than 20 adventure books. On November 6, 1989, Barry Sadler died from a serious gunshot wound he suffered a year earlier. While traveling in Guatamala in 1988, he was shot in the head while in a taxi cab. He laid in a coma for several months and ended up suffering brain damage and was partially paralyzed. The shooting was originally reported as a robbery and never officially solved, but some have claimed it was an assassination attempt by those who believed that Sadler was training the Contras.