BBC ON THIS DAY | 16 | 1977: Rock and roll 'king' Presley dies
1977: Rock and roll 'king' Presley diesElvis Presley, whose singing and style revolutionized popular music in the 1950s, has died.Presley, 42, was discovered slumped in a bathroom at his mansion in Memphis, Tennessee on Tuesday.
He was rushed to the Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis but was pronounced dead on arrival.
The Tennessee state pathologist, Dr. Jerry Francisco, said a post mortem examination of the singer's body had revealed he died of cardiac arrhythmia - a form of heart attack.
"The precise cause has not yet been determined for the cardiac arrhythmia," Dr Francisco said.
"It may take several days to several weeks to determine that specific cause and in some cases it never is determined."
The three-hour examination uncovered no sign of any other diseases or any drug abuse, Dr Francisco added.
Declining health
Presley was divorced from his wife Priscilla in 1973 but it was rumoured that he had recently become engaged to Ginger Alden, 20.
She was reportedly spotted wearing a $50,000 (£20,315) diamond engagement ring from Presley.
Ms Alden and other members of his entourage were at Graceland when he collapsed.
There had been indications of Elvis Presley's declining health for some time.
Earlier this year the singer had cancelled several performances in Louisiana and returned to Memphis suffering what his doctors termed "exhaustion".
No arrangements have been announced yet for his funeral which is scheduled for Friday.
August 16, 2009
BBC ON THIS DAY | 16 | 1977: Rock and roll 'king' Presley dies
MJ’s Wacky Afterlife : Top 100 Celebrities
MJ’s Wacky Afterlife : Top 100 CelebritiesLOS ANGELES – MICHAEL Jackson’s outlandish life is being overshadowed in his death by events so preposterous they seem to come from a fiction writer’s overactive imagination.
SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN
Jackson had his first two children, Prince Michael and Paris, when he was married to Debbie Rowe, an assistant to his dermatologist, between 1996 and 1999.Ms Rowe signed over parental rights to the children to Jackson, who later had a third child, Prince Michael II, by a surrogate.
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GHOST, CLONE AND A NOBEL PRIZE?
Soon after Jackson’s death, a website opened nominating the singer for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize for having ‘given of himself completely and selflessly in a lifelong effort to help better global conditions for children, and all of humankind.’As of Saturday more than 31,000 people had signed the petition – even though Nobel prizes are not awarded posthumously.
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They include a petition to award him a Nobel peace prize; a growing list of people who claim to be the real parents of Jackson’s children; a lawsuit from an alleged ex-wife; and a sect that believes the ‘King of Pop’ lives on, albeit on another planet.Jackson died in Los Angeles on June 25 at age 50 from an apparent cardiac arrest. His son Prince Michael, 12; his daughter Paris, 11, and seven-year-old son Prince Michael II – known as ‘Blanket’ – are the immediate heirs to the late singer’s music empire. Their legal guardian is Katherine Jackson, the children’s paternal grandmother.
According to a case filed recently in Los Angeles, a woman named Claire Elisabeth Fields Cruise claims to be the children’s sole biological mother.
Documents filed by Ms Fields Cruise, and posted on celebrity website TMZ.com, also claim Prince Michael I was fathered by a man who lives in France, while Paris Jackson’s father was Fields Cruise’s ‘unofficial college sweetheart’. Ms Fields Cruise told a judge she gave birth to the children without being pregnant with them.
‘There is technology that is in existence,’ she told reporters after she filed the case, “to remove the conceived children from her body and insert them into the bodies of the surrogates who gave birth to them.’
Ms Fields Cruise also claimed that Jackson ‘always knew’ he was the biological father of Connor Cruise, the 14 year-old black child that actors Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman adopted in 1995, when they were still married.
One day before Ms Fields Cruise filed her case, British ex-child star Mark Lester said that he might be Paris Jackson’s father.
‘I gave Michael my sperm so that he could have kids – and I believe Paris is my daughter,’ Lester, who played Oliver Twist in the 1968 film musical ‘Oliver!’, told the British tabloid News of the World.
Jackson family spokesmen said the 51-year-old Briton was a friend of Jackson and is godfather to all three of his children, but denied Lester’s parenthood claim. — AFP
Memphis producer, musician Jim Dickinson dies - Entertainment AP - MiamiHerald.com
Memphis producer, musician Jim Dickinson dies - Entertainment AP - MiamiHerald.comMemphis producer, musician Jim Dickinson dies
FILE - In this Wednesday, June 11, 2008 file photo, Jim Dickinson stands outside his farm in Coldwater, Miss. Dickinson, a musician and producer who helped shape the Memphis sound in an influential career that spanned more than four decades, has died. He was 67.Similar stories:By CHRIS TALBOTT
Associated Press Writer
JACKSON, Miss. -- Jim Dickinson, a musician and producer who helped shape the Memphis sound in a career that spanned more than four decades, died Saturday. He was 67.
His wife, Mary Lindsay Dickinson, said he died in a Memphis, Tenn., hospital after three months of heart and intestinal bleeding problems.
The couple lived in Hernando, Miss., but Dickinson recently had bypass surgery and was undergoing rehabilitation at Methodist University Hospital, his wife said.
Jim Dickinson, perhaps best known as the father of Luther and Cody Dickinson, two-thirds of the Grammy-nominated North Mississippi Allstars, managed an outsider's career in an insider's industry. He recorded with and produced greats like Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Big Star, the Rolling Stones, The Replacements and Sam & Dave.
His work in the 1960s and '70s is still influential as young artists rediscover the classic sound of Memphis from that era - a melting pot of rock, pop, blues, country, and rhythm and blues.
"I think he was an incredibly influential individual," Big Star drummer Jody Stephens said Saturday. "I think he defined independent spirit in music, and I think that touched a lot of people."
Dickinson's music was informed by his eclectic and encyclopedic record collection - sold off and rebuilt a few times over the years, usually around Christmas - and his wide array of friends.
"As a producer, it really is all about taste," Jim Dickinson said in a 2008 interview with The Associated Press. "And I'm not the greatest piano player in the world, but I've got damn good taste. I'll sit down and go taste with anybody."
A dabbler in music while in college and later in shows at the famed Overton Park Shell in Memphis, Dickinson was on his way to becoming "a miserable history teacher." But his wife insisted he focus on his music after watching him play shows with the blues legends of Memphis.
"They were rediscovering Furry Lewis and Sleepy John Estes, Rev. Robert Wilkins, these talents that were like gods," Mary Lindsay Dickinson said in 2008. "They were street sweepers. They were yard men. They had no money, no fame, even though they'd invented this style, this musical style that was changing the world. When I saw what he could do with them - he thought he was gonna be a history teacher - I said, 'No, no, no, no, let's try music and see what happens."
Jim Dickinson moved around, traveling with both his own projects and as a sideman until his sons were born. He gave up the road and the lifestyle, built a home studio and settled in to the hard-scrabble life of the independent producer that he jokingly compared to hustling.
His sense of humor, gift for storytelling and open door kept musicians filing through his studio and kitchen as his sons grew up. He took an interest in the boys' music as another father might his sons' baseball career, even drawing Luther and Cody into his own bands. They last released an album together as Jungle Jim and the Voodoo Tiger in 2006.
"Growing up he would play piano and electric guitar and it just always fascinated me, and I always had a little toy guitar of some sort around," Luther Dickinson said in 2008. "And I've really been blessed because I always knew what I wanted to do and it was totally because of my dad and his friends."
Dickinson's career touched on some of the most important music made in the '60s and '70s. He recorded the Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses" in Muscle Shoals, Ala.; formed the Atlantic Records house band The Dixie Flyers to record with Franklin and other R&B legends in Miami; inspired a legion of indie rock bands through his work with Big Star; collaborated with Ry Cooder on a number of movie scores, including "Paris, Texas;" and played with Dylan on his Grammy-winning return to prominence, "Time Out of Mind."
He credited his work with Big Star on "Third/Sister Lovers" with keeping his tape reels turning over the years, and Stephens found Dickinson's fingerprints all over the album when he listened to it recently.
"There's so many contributions from people that Jim either brought in or helped steer," Stephens said. "And sometimes a brilliant decision is to do nothing, allow space and that sort of thing. His keyboard part in 'Kizza Me' is this great fractured piano that kind of cascades, like the piano's falling down a flight of steps. I think it was all about the spirit and the emotion."
Dickinson's later work as a producer veered wildly across genres, skipping from Mudhoney to T Model Ford to Lucero and Amy Lavere.
"I'm not really a success-oriented person," Dickinson said. "If you look back at my records that I've made as a producer, they're pretty left-wing. It's some pretty off-the-wall stuff. Especially in the punk rock days. I literally took clients because I thought it would impress my children. I did work in the '70s and '80s where that was definitely my main motive."
Jimmy Page My Les Paul Guitar is My Mistress and Wife | Parade.com
Jimmy Page My Les Paul Guitar is My Mistress and Wife | Parade.comJimmy Page: My Les Paul Guitar is My Mistress and WifeThree real-life guitar heroes rock the house in “It Might Get Loud.” Jack White (White Stripes), Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), and The Edge (U2) get together for an impromptu jam session in Davis Guggenheim’s documentary tracing the rise of the electric guitar and three legendary musicians who made it their own.by Jeanne Wolf
Parade.com’s Jeanne Wolf found out some of Jimmy Page’s own rock memories and why he’ll miss the man who started it all, Les Paul, who passed away Thursday.
Jamming with The Edge and Jack White.
“What was so fascinating about it is that we are all really self-taught guitarists. We all have real interesting characteristics. It's not like we're part of an orchestra, where everyone has been taught the same way. But it turned out to be a great experience.”
Photos: Rock band reunionsRemembering Les Paul.
“He’s the man who started everything. He’s just a genius. He set the scene for what was to come as the pioneer of the electric guitar and new tape-recording technology. The Les Paul Gibson guitar that I got, I’ve played all the way through my career. It’s absolutely irreplaceable. I’ve had a marriage with that guitar. It’s my mistress and my wife -- and I don’t have to worry about paying any alimony. Of course, it has spawned some sons and daughters because I’ve acquired far too many guitars over the years. The blessed part is that I can’t play them all at once. If I just got back to my basic tools like the Les Paul, I suppose I could eliminate quite a few.”
Delivering newspapers got him started.
“I don't think my parents understood at all what I was doing, but they certainly didn't sabotage any of it. My dad bought me my first guitar, which was an acoustic. After that I wanted to pay for my own, so I got a paper route and got an electric one.”
Stars reveal what they would tell their younger selves
What he listened to as a kid.
“It was rock and roll and then the blues. It was just purely what was available to be heard in those days. I started listening to the radio and it was like this arm came out of the speaker and pulled me in. I was seduced. But for sure, I was influenced by all of those early rock and roll artists, the ones that came out of Memphis, Little Richard, Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis. These days I've been listening to a lot of rockabilly.”
Hearing his influence in current performers.
“That's how music travels on. I mean that's how I learned. But as far as the record business goes, it's in a total change at the moment. I think kids want to get their music for free, but they are keen to hear live music. So I don't know how that's going to work out at the end of the day.”
The secret to making a great song like “Stairway to Heaven.”
“How it came about was just tinkering around on the guitar. It came from that. That’s exactly how it happens. You might have just tuned up, and you start playing and one minute you have nothing, or just a couple of chords, and the next minute you’re actually coming up with some new vision.”
Paul, Ringo Unveil 'Beatles: Rock Band'
Still finding new fans after all these years.
“I guess I was old before I got young. Whenever I think about it, I think you just get measured up by what you do, what you produce, as far as your music goes. For me, it’s almost like being in the same picture with a different frame.”
As for those blasted critics.
“You can just be sarcastic or you can try and look at the positive side of it and say, ‘Well, they just didn’t have a clue,’ Each of our albums was so radically different than the one that preceded it, I guess the reviewers had no point of reference. The people who bought our records and got into them understood what we were doing.”
Celebs reveal their first jobs
Don’t look for Led Zeppelin on Guitar Hero any time soon.
“Obviously, there have been overtures made to us, but if you start with the first track on the first Led Zeppelin album, ‘Good Times Bad Times,’ and you think of the drum part that John Bonham did -- how many drummers in the world can actually play that? It’s like if they opened their Guitar Hero and started dabbling, there could be a lot of alcohol consumed and they still wouldn’t come close to Bonham.”