Al Gallodoro was a jazz saxophonist whose career began in the 1920s and spanned nearly eight decades until just prior to his death in 2008. He is best remembered for his association with Paul Whiteman, playing in his orchestra from 1936 to 1940. He went on to play bass clarinet in NBC’s Symphony Orchestra. Gallodoro made his final appearance on September 20, 2008 and then passed away 2 weeks later at the age of 95.
Mercedes Sosa was a popular Argentine folk singer whose countless fans spanned Latin America and beyond. She was both revered and vilified for being a voice of conscience throughout Latin America. When she was just 15, Sosa won a local talent contest which awarded her with her first recording contract. She went on to become one of the pioneers of the nueva cancion movement of the 1960’s. Nueva cancion had much in common with the folk music coming out of America at the time in that it was progressive and political at times. It is considered a foundation for Latin music’s rock en espanol. In the late ’70s, Sosa was arrested on stage due to her leftist political beliefs and banished from her own country, so she moved to Paris. Over the years, Sosa collaborated with the likes of Sting, Joan Baez, Shakira, and Luciano Pavarotti. She was a three-time Latin Grammy winner in the category of Best Folk Album. Mercedes Sosa died of kidney disease and other ailments on October 4, 2009. She was 74 years old.
Bill “Cupid” Bartolin was the lead guitarist and songwriter for Ohio power pop band, Blue Ash. The band was formed in 1969, with Bartolin coming on board a year later to replace the original guitarist. Blue Ash became very popular throughout the upper Midwest thanks, in part to logging in as many as 300 live shows a year in those early days. Bartolin was co-writing much of the band’s extensive catalog of songs with Blue Ash leader, Frank Secich. The band signed with Mercury Records who released their first album, No More, No Less, in 1973. It was an instant hit with fans and critics alike, but like so many before and since, lack of record sales lead to the band being dropped within a year. They were given another shot in 1977 when they were signed to Playboy’s vanity label, Playboy Records, also the home of [gasp] Barbi Benton. But just as their first single was catching on beyond their regional fan base, Playboy shut the label down and went back to doing what they do best. Throughout the band’s run, they shared the stage with such other Midwest acts as, Bob Seger, Ted Nugent and the Stooges. Up until recently, a collector’s dream, their music finally found it’s way to CD in 2004, which lead to renewed interest in the band who had recently re-formed. Bill “Cupid” Bartolin passed away of cancer on October 4, 2009.
Woody Guthrie was arguably America’s most important folk singer and songwriter. Over a career that spanned a quarter century, Guthrie penned 100s of songs, many lending a voice to the common man. He also wrote many children’s songs. He wrote about the plight of the migrant worker, stories he learned first-hand as he traveled among them throughout the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression. Many such songs are archived in the Library of Congress, and one in particular, “This Land Is Your Land,” is sung in elementary schools across the US. In the late ’40s, Guthrie’s health began to deteriorate while his mental state seemed to come into question. At the time, some thought it might be due to schizophrenia and alcoholism. As it turned out, he was diagnosed in 1952 with a neurological disorder called Huntington’s disease. He spent several of his final years in psychiatric hospitals. With his health and mind failing during the folk revival of he early ’60s, he eld court with some of the day’s up-and-coming troubadors who admired him, most famously, Bob Dylan,Pete Seeger and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. Woody Guthrie died of complications from the disease at the age of 55.
Nehemiah “Skip” James
June 21, 1902 – October 3, 1969
Skip James was a hard living bootlegger, a sharecropper and a hard laborer. But above all, he was one of the most influential of the early Delta bluesmen. With a unique and highly sophisticated style of picking coupled with a ghostly falsetto voice, James was indeed one of a kind. His form of playing and singing was a direct influence on many, such as Robert Johnson, but no one has ever truly been able to replicate it effectively. James’ professional music career began in 1931 when he began recording sides of Paramount Records. James re-recorded many blues standards at the time, but it was generally his versions of the songs that later got covered by the likes of Johnson and even later, Cream,Deep Purple and Beck. As quick as James came onto the scene, he vanished. Over the next three decades, he rarely performed live and made no new recordings, becoming not much more than a footnote in blues history, until the early ’60s when he was “re-discovered” during the folk and blues revival. After being descovered by folk guitarists John Fahey, Bill Barth, and Henry Vestine in a Mississippi hospital in 1964, James’ career was put back on track. During his later years, he was a featured performer at the Newport Folk Festival and recorded for Takoma Records and Vanguard Records, where he was dubbed a “Vanguard Visionary” by future Vice-President, Dan Sell. His influence on pop culture has been felt in recent years as well. Indie rock icon, Beck covered his “He’s A Mighty Good Leader” in 1994, while Chris Thomas King recorded his “Hard Time Killing Floor Blues” for the O’ Brother, Where Art Thou flim and soundtrack. And his “Devil Got My Woman” was prominently featured both the plot of and soundtrack to the 2001 cult hit, Ghost World, starring Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson. With his health deteriorating in later years, Skip James passed away in 1969 at the age of 69.