Died On This Date (February 5, 2013) Paul Tanner / Glenn Miller Orchestra; Played On “Good Vibrations”
themusicsover Paul Tanner
October 15, 1917 – February 5, 2013
Until his passing, Paul Tanner was the last surviving member of the original Glenn Miller Orchestra. Born into a musical family, Tanner was already touring the country by his late teens. During one of those gigs, Tanner was approached by Miller who asked him to join his band. He played trombone for Miller from 1938 to 1942. After Miller went off to play in the Army Air Force Band, Tanner went on to do session work in Los Angeles, and teach music for 23 years at UCLA. He also performed with the ABC Orchestra for 16 years, sharing the stage with Andre Previn and Leonard Bernstein to name just two. During the ’50s, Tanner developed an spacey-sounding instrument called an electro-theremin and by doing so, became a pioneer of electronic music as we know it today. With his electro-theremin, Tanner can be heard on music played during the My Favorite Martian television series as well as other programs and films. He also played the instrument on the Beach Boys‘ “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times,” “Wild Honey,” and most notably, “Good Vibrations.” Paul Tanner was 95 when he passed away on February 5, 2013.
Thanks to Harold Lepidus at Bob Dylan Examiner for the assist
Reg Presley was the front man for legendary British garage band, the Troggs. Their biggest hit came with their 1966 cover of Chip Taylor’s “Wild Thing” which reached #1 on the Billboard singles chart that year. Their version came in at #257 on Rolling Stone‘s list of The Top 500 Songs of All Time. Their follow-up single, “With A Girl Like You” was nearly as popular in the UK, but failed to ignite in the US. Their three most popular singles, the two listed above along with “Love Is All Around,” sold over a million copies each. Besides the impact their “Wild Thing” continues to have on rock music to this day, the band itself can take at least partial credit for influencing the birth of punk and garage rock. As a songwriter, Presley’s biggest hit was “Love Is All Around,” which was another big hit in the UK, but barely cracked the Top 100 in the US. It did however, enjoy a new life when Wet Wet Wet topped the UK charts with it in 1994. At over 1.8 million copies sold at the time, it was the tenth biggest selling single in England. Th royalties Presley enjoyed from its sales went to fund his research on crop circles on which he wrote the 2002 book, Wild Things They Don’t Tell Us. Presley continued to tour with the Troggs up until his retirement in 2012 due to health concerns. Reg Presley was 71 when he died of cancer and a series of strokes on February 4, 2013. Troggs founding drummer, 
Patty Andrews, along with her two older sisters, 
Ann Rabson was an influential blues singer and musician who is often recognized for helping bring blues women to the forefront of the genre. Over a career that began in 1962, Rabson performed and recorded as a solo act and as part of an acoustic blues collective known as Sapphire, the Uppity Blues Women. Over the course of her career, she received several 