Recently in Hipsters In Heaven Category

7:00 p.m. Jan. 14
The Christmas card didn’t arrive this year.
Around every mid-December for the past 10 years I received a Christmas card from Ken Nelson, the legendary Capitol Records producer who recorded Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, Gene Vincent, the Louvin Brothers, Tex Ritter and so many others.
Nelson died on Jan. 6, just 13 days shy of his 97th birthday. He passed over of natural causes according to his daughter Claudia. Nelson was one of my country music heroes.
In the fall of 1987 I rented a car in Los Angeles and drove to Nelson’s home in Somis, Calif. Nelson was a forgotten figure in popular music and I wanted to write a story lobbying for his inclusion in the Country Music Hall of Fame. (He was finally inducted in 2001). In 1961 he co-founded the Country Music Association for crissakes! A story like Nelson's is why I got into journalism.
He had fallen into the shadows..............

9:30 a.m. Dec. 13

Like a scratchy '45, a revolving restaurant spun atop the rock n' roll Holiday Inn in Hollywood, Ca.. It seemed like the right place to meet Ike Turner in the autumn of 1988. He had just graduated from an 11-day stay at the Schick Shadel Hospital in Santa Barbara where he was undergoing sodium pentothal and shock treatment for his 18-year cocaine addiction.
Life was no holiday for this cornerstone of rock n' roll.
Turner died Dec. 12 at his home in suburban San Diego. He was 76.
He leaves Jerry Lee Lewis and Phil Spector as the last ornery men in rock n' roll.
Turner and I talked over tall glasses of Coca-Cola and chicken wings in the hotel lounge. "I'll tell you: in 1982 I stuck a Magnum in my mouth and snapped it," Turner said. "But I'm glad it didn't shoot. Maybe next time I won't be quite as fortunate. (He grinned). I don't know if I was fortunate or not. I feel pretty good about myself now.".............

5:30 p.m. Nov. 24

Ruth Brown was bigger than New York, where she cut her R&B chops and she was larger than Las Vegas, where she died from complications of a stroke and a heart attack on Nov. 17. Brown was 78 and she lived life at a full tilt 78 RPM/MPH/DIY.
She cast a rainbow with an endless pot of gold.
I met Brown in April, 1988 at the Atlantic Records 40th anniversary party at Madison Square Garden in New York. I was backstage doing interviews with seminal Atlantic R&B artists like Brown and the late LaVern Baker. Brown was the most commercially successful act at Atlantic between 1949 and 1962 and the label was often referred to as "The House that Ruth Built." I was more excited about seeing Baker and Brown than the historic reunion of Led Zeppelin (without John Bonham of course), the Bee Gees (who hadn't performed together since 1979) and Vanilla Fudge!
And Brown was on the cusp of something very big........

Updated,
6 p.m. Oct. 17

The soul of America could be heard in the searching tenor of Freddy Fender. The popular country balladeer died Saturday of complications from lung cancer. He was 69.

4:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 23

Danny Flores has died.
Danny Flores is to tequila what Francis Scott Key is to America.
In 1958 Flores played saxophone on the Champs hit "Tequila!" He's that guy that shouts "Tequila!" during the instrumental. Seals and Crofts joined the Champs after "Tequila!" They got a chance to perform on the 1960 followup "Too Much Tequila!" Flores died Tuesday of complications from pneumonia in a Huntington Beach, Ca. hospital. He was 77.
It has been raining all day in Chicago. For me, it those are tequila teardrops.
Hey, this is a blog. I can be over the top as much as I want. One of the greatest road trips I ever took was the Tequila Express train from the downtown Guadalajara, Mexico train station out to the blue valleys of Tequila, Mexico. I'm going to crack open a bottle of Cazadores (reposado) and reminisce.....

11:42 p.m. July 22

Pop-rock singer Gene Pitney died on April 5.
I was on the road and unable to weigh in on his obituary. Unless you're Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, news moves faster than when Gene was turning out the hits; "Town Without Pity" (1961), "Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa," (1963) "It Hurts To Be In Love" (1964) and "Princess In Rags" (1965).
In 1964 Gene even dipped into the songbook of spaced out rock savant Joe Meek, when he had a minor hit with Meek's cheery "Lips Were Redder On You." Check it out.
Gene died of natural causes in his hotel room after a show in Cardiff, Wales. I don't have any obit in front of me, but he had been all over the world. He knew the reward of travel was understanding the warmth of home.