Died On This Date (June 15, 2011) Bill Johnson / Grammy Winning Art Director
themusicsover Bill Johnson
DOB Unknown – June 15, 2011
Bill Johnson was a longtime art director who helped shape the image of country music packaging during the ’80s and ’90s. He spent the better part of two decades working at CBS Records where he created artwork for such albums as Willie Nelson’s Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Rodney Crowell’s Diamonds & Dirt, the Dixie Chicks’ Wide Open Spaces, Roseanne Cash’s King’s Record Shop, and the O’Kanes’ Tired Of The Runnin’. The Cash and O’Kanes packages each earned him Grammys. Bill Johnson was 68 when he died of lung cancer on June 15, 2011.
Tsutomo Katoh was the co-founder and chairman of Japanese electronic musical instrument giant, Korg Corporation. Launched with Tadashi Osanai in 1962, Korg went on to become a world leader in the manufacturing and sales of keyboards, synthesizers, recording equipment, audio processors, guitar amps and more. Tsutomo Katoh passed away on March 15, 2011 after a long battle with cancer. He was 87.
Leonard Skinner was a Jacksonville, Florida high school gym teacher who, during the late 1960s sent a group of his students to the principal’s audience for wearing their hair too long. A few years later, those school friends, 
Robert Moog is best known for his groundbreaking invention, the Moog Synthesizer, which helped revolutionize music, and became an essential instrument for electronic music in particular. A highly educated electrical engineer by trade, Moog founded two electronic instrument companies and was a vice president at Kurzweil during the ’80s. In 1969, he was awarded his first patent for a synthesizer that utilized a keyboard. He went on to hold several more related patents. Moog has twice been recognized by the Grammys for his contributions to popular music. Since its invention, the Moog Synthesizer was utilized by such musicians as Rick Wakeman, Keith Emerson, John Cage and Walter Carlos (now Wendy Carlos), whose Switched On Bach and the soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange are became landmark recordings. Robert Moog was 71 when he died of a brain tumor on August 21, 2005.