Died On This Date (May 5, 2010) Bob Mercer / Music Industry Veteran
themusicsover Bob Mercer
October 17, 1944 – May 5, 2010
Bob Mercer is perhaps best remembered as the music industry veteran who helmed the wildly successful Now That’s What I Call Music! hit compilation series. But to many of those with whom he worked, he was above all, a beloved mentor and motivator. Since the Now series debuted in the United States in 1998, it has sold in the neighborhood of 77 million units combined. What was fairly unique about the series at the time, at least in the US, was that the CDs collected the biggest current dor recent hits of the day, in a partnership with the major labels. To many, the series would be a flop, but of course they were proven wrong over and over again. During his career, Mercer also held executive positions at EMI UK (where he signed the Sex Pistols, Queen, and T. Rex to name a few), PolyGram’s TV division, and New Door Records. Bob Mercer was 65 when he died of lung cancer on May 5, 2010.
Willie Pooch was a popular Columbus, Ohio area blues singer who began his career in gospel groups while still just a child in and around Tupelo, Mississippi. During his teens, he and his family moved to Chicago where Pooch fell under the tutelage of 
Roy Carrier was an accomplished accordion player and singer who was part of a musical family that was highly influential to world of Zydeco and Cajun music. He was considered to be one of the last living original Zydeco greats of the 50’s and ’60s. Over a career that began when he was just ten years old, Carrier and his bands drew large crowds at festivals and clubs across the country and beyond. In 1980, he opened the Offshore Lounge (named so since he earned his living on the offshore oil rigs along the Louisiana coast.) The club soon became a beacon for up-and-coming zydeco musicians to jam with, or just learn from the area’s best. During the late ’80s, Carrier said goodbye to the oil business to focus on his music career full time. He began making records in 1987. On May 4, 2010, Roy Carrier lost his battle with lung cancer. He was 63.
Simon Wilde was the bassist for Rabid, and then briefly for the Vancouver punk band, D.O.A. Formed in 1978, D.O.A., along with Minor Threat, Black Flag and Bad Brains came to be known as the flash point of hardcore punk. Wilde died as a result of a brain tumor on May 4, 1991