Died On This Date (June 24, 2008) Ira B. Tucker / Sang Lead For The Dixie Hummingbirds
themusicsover Ira B. Tucker
May 17, 1925 – June 24, 2008
Ira B. Tucker Sr. was the lead singer for the celebrated gospel vocal group, the Dixie Hummingbirds. Joining the group at the age of 13, Tucker fronted them for the next 70 years. They have been called a direct inspiration for the likes of Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Paul Simon, B.B. King, Jackie Wilson and Aretha Franklin. Tucker died of heart failure at the age of 83.
Bill Harrell was a bluegrass pioneer who helped build the scene in the acoustic music Washington DC/Baltimore area. He began playing the guitar as a child and by the time he was in college, bluegrass was his music of choice. Over the years, Harrell performed and recorded with many of the areas great players. He’s also performed on 
Fred Anderson was an influential Chicago jazz saxophonist who, over the course a career that spanned six decades, earned critical praise in the free jazz and avant garde styles. After teaching himself to play the sax as a child, Anderson moved with his family to Chicago where he began his formal training. By the late ’60s, he was the dean of Chicago’s underground jazz scene. In the early ’80s, Anderson became the owner of the Velvet Lounge, a club that soon found itself at the center of the city’s thriving jazz scene. Over the course of his career, he released several influential albums on such labels and Delmark and Okka. Fred Anderson was 81 when, on June 24, 2010, he died following a heart attack.
JoJo Billingsley was a songwriter and vocalist who is perhaps best remembered as a member of the “Honkettes,” the so-nicknamed back-up singers for Lynyrd Skynyrd for nearly four years. Billingsley joined the group in 1975, touring the world during their peak years. That all came to a tragic end on October 20, 1977 when she was the only member of the band not killed in a plane crash that took the lives of 
Francis Dreyfus was a successful French music producer, publisher and label head for many years. As a publisher, he signed the likes of Cat Stevens, David Bowie, and Pink Floyd to his Francis Dreyfus Music. He mostly specialized on electronic and jazz music on his labels, Disques Dreyfus, Disques Motors, and Dreyfus Jazz. His most notable discovery was electronic pioneer, Jean-Michel Jarre. Dreyfus published his first recordings and released his groundbreaking Oxygene on his label. Other notable artists he signed over the years included jazz greats, Marcus Miller and Alan Stivell. He was also a one-time president of SPPF, a French rights society. His was the father of popular French actress, Julie Dreyfus. Francis Dreyfus was 69 when he passed away on June 24, 2010.