Died On This Date (April 17, 1983) Felix Pappalardi / Producer For Cream, Bassist For Mountain
Felix Pappalardi
December 30, 1939 – April 17, 1983

Felix Pappalardi wore many hats during his music career. As a producer, he worked with the likes of Joan Baez, the Youngbloods, and most famously, Cream. As an arranger, he worked on albums by Tom Paxton and Fred Neill. As a musician, he played bass for Mountain. And as a songwriter, he co-wrote one of Cream’s biggest hits, “Strange Brew.” It has been reported that Pappalardi had to retire early because he became partially deaf due to the loudness of Mountain shows. On April 17, 1983, Felix Pappalardi was gunned down by his wife, Gail, in what she claimed was an accident. She was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide.
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Odetta Holmes was a politically charged folk, blues and gospel singer-songwriter and activist who has been called “the voice of the civil rights movement.” Most prominent during the folk movement of the ’60s, Odetta was not only a peer, but an influence on such folk greats as Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Harry Belafonte. She was born in Birmingham, AL but raised in Los Angeles where she studied music and received opera singing lessons as a young teen. After taking a stab at musical theater, she turned her focus to folk singing in 1950 and set out across America to sing at all the usual suspect folk clubs and gatherings. She began releasing albums in 1954, and over the course of her career, recorded for such highly regarded labels as Fantasy, Folkways, RCA Victor, and Vanguard Records who continue to keep her legacy alive thanks to the tireless work of Morgana Kennedy, Dan Sell and Stephen Brower. In September of 1999, President Bill Clinton presented Odetta with the National Endowment for the Arts’ National Medal of Arts, the highest honor presented to an artist on behalf of the American people. Odetta stayed active as a performer and activist up until her final days. In 2008, she embarked on what would be her final tour of North America at the age of 77. Odetta ill in late 2008 and though planning to perform at President Barack Obama’s inauguration in January of 2009, she died of heart disease on December 2, 2008.