Died On This Date (May 11, 1981) Bob Marley / Reggae Icon

Bob Marley
February 6, 1945 – May 11, 1981

Bob Marley was a Jamaican musician and singer-songwriter who is widely recognized for bringing reggae music to the rest of the world.  He is arguable the most beloved performer of reggae.  His greatest hits album, Legend, is the biggest selling reggae album of all times, selling a staggering 20 million copies.  in 1963, producer Coxsone Dodd discovered Marley in a group that also included Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer.  They would soon become the Wailers.  Over the next several years, Marley would release a string of albums that would help define a sound and movement.  Those classic albums included Catch A Fire, Burnin’, Rastaman Vibration, and of course, Exudus.  In July of 1977, Marley was diagnosed with a form of malenoma in his big toe.  Citing his Rastafarian belief that the body most remain whole, Marley refused to receive any form of surgical treatment.  Instead, he sought more controversial and holistic forms of treatment, but the cancer had already progressed too far.  Bob Marley passed away in a Miami hospital at the age of 36.

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Died On This Date (May 11, 1979) Lester Flatt / Flatt & Scruggs

Lester Flatt
June 19, 1914 – May 11, 1979

Lester Flatt was a singer and guitarist whose remarkable talents added to the success of Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys through most of the ’40s.  In 1948, Flatt teamed up with banjo great Earl Scruggs to form Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys. Together they became one of the most popular bluegrass bands of their time and one of the most influential of all time. His smooth picking and rich voice can be heard on literally hundreds of songs that make up one of acoustic music’s most important catalogs. But perhaps Flatt’s biggest contribution to pop culture came by way of The Beverly Hillbillies for which they wrote and recorded its theme song, “The Ballad Of Jed Clampett,” backing singer Jerry Scoggins. They even appeared on the show as themselves a few times.  Lester Flatt died of heart disease on May 11, 1979.

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Died On This Date (May 11, 2003) Noel Redding / Jimi Hendrix Experience

David “Noel” Redding
December 25, 1945 – May 11, 2003

Noel Redding is best remembered as the bassist for the Jimi Hendrix Experience from 1966 to 1969.  He played on the three landmark albums, Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold As Love, and Electric Ladyland.  Redding first learned to play the violin when he was just nine, and soon became proficient on the mandolin and guitar as well.  But it was the bass that he finally settled on, and by the time he was 16, he was playing it in his first local bands.  Five years later, he became the first to join Hendrix in the Experience.  He left the group in 1969.  Redding also recorded with a handful of other projects as well, the Loving King, Fat Mattress, Road, and the Noel Redding Band, which was sometimes referred to as the Clonakilty Cowboys.   He all but retired from music in 1972, resurfacing occasionally to play at special occasions, including at a 1993 Phish show.  On May 11, 2003,  Noel Redding died from complications of cirrhosis of the liver.  He was 57 years old.

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Died On This Date (May 11, 2008) Dottie Rambo / Popular Southern Gospel Singer

Joyce “Dottie” Rambo
March 2, 1934 – May 11, 2008

Southern Gospel singer Dottie Rambo died May 11, 2008 from injuries sustained when her tour bus ran off the road on her way to a Mother’s Day concert. Rambo, who was elected to both the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame published more than 2500 songs.  Elvis Presley and Dolly Parton recorded some of her songs.  Rambo was 74 when she died.


Died On This Date (May 11, 1970) Johnny Hodges / Played Sax With Duke Ellington

Johnny Hodges
July 25, 1907 – May 11, 2008

Johnny Hodges was an American saxophonist who played lead in Duke Ellington’s Orchestra for 38 years, giving it it’s signature sound.  And along the way, he wowed not only jazz fans but his contemporaries as well.  Benny Goodman once claimed that Hodges was “the greatest man on alto sax I ever heard.”  allmusic.com calls him the “Possessor of the most beautiful tone ever heard in jazz.”  Hodges stayed with Ellington until his sudden death in 1970, after which Ellington proclaimed, “Our band will never sound the same.”