Garth Hudson
Organist for the Band and idiosyncratic soul. Died Jan. 21 in Lake Katrine, N.Y., at age 87.
Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
The brainy, bush-bearded native of London, Ont., was the oldest member and the last surviving original player in the influential Canadian-American roots-rock quintet. “Garth Hudson was the warm and open heart of the Band,” music writer and author Greil Marcus told The Globe and Mail. “He seemed to float above the jealousies and betrayals that broke a brotherhood that so many inside and outside the group believed would last.”
Among the classically trained musician’s signature contributions to the Band were the majestic organ intro to Chest Fever, the soprano saxophone solo on It Makes No Difference, the accordion part to When I Paint My Masterpiece and the funky clavinet riff on Up On Cripple Creek.
Marianne Faithfull
British pop star, libertine and Rolling Stones muse. Died Jan. 30 in London. She was 78.
Fred Mott/Getty Images
In the Swinging London of the 1960s, few swung like Marianne Faithfull. The baroness’s daughter was a teenage pop star, girlfriend of (and cultural mentor to) the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger, tabloid-labelled “Naked Girl At Stones Party,” comeback queen with the release of 1979’s Broken English album, and revered rock ‘n’ roll matriarch and cigarette-smoking survivor.
Musically she thrived with melancholic ballads such as As Tears Go By, her breakthrough 1964 hit written by Keith Richards, Andrew Loog Oldham and Mr. Jagger.
Roberta Flack
Singer of affecting pop ballads. Died Feb. 24 in New York. She was 88.
David Redfern/Redferns/Getty Images
“Her voice touched, tapped, trapped, and kicked every emotion I’ve ever known,” wrote jazz musician Les McCann, who discovered Roberta Flack in the late 1960s.
The rest of the world discovered the elegantly expressive singer when Clint Eastwood used The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face as the soundtrack to the memorable outdoor sex scene in his 1971 film Play Misty for Me.
The song won her a Grammy for record of the year in 1973, a feat she matched a year later with Killing Me Softly with His Song.
Sly Stone
Revolutionary soul-rock auteur. Died June 9 in Los Angeles. He was 82.
Globe Photos via ZUMA Press Wire and Reuters Connect
He was namesake captain of the San Francisco-based collective Sly and the Family Stone, whose infectious sounds fused R&B rhythms with a psychedelic sensibility that attracted both Black and white audiences.
The funky 1968 hit Dance to the Music was an invitation few could resist, and the 1969 singles Everyday People and Everybody Is a Star continued the positive communal vibes. In 1971, however, the paranoid, isolated bandleader used a drum machine and session musicians to record the bleak There’s a Riot Goin’ On.
In the years that followed, the reclusive, unreliable musician became as defined by absence as by his accolades.
Brian Wilson
Beach Boys visionary, surfboard-pop pioneer and purveyor of good vibrations. Died June 11 in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 82.
Kevin Winter/Getty Images
“Brian had that mysterious sense of musical genius that made his songs so achingly special,” Paul McCartney said in a statement after Brian Wilson died. “I loved him and was privileged to be around his bright shining light for a little while.” The two songwriters were friendly musical rivals − the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds inspired the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band − but Mr. Wilson had uniquely transcendent aspirations for his music, saying his goal was to create a “teenage symphony to God.” Did he succeed? God only knows, and He’s not talking.
Serge Fiori
Lead singer-songwriter of Quebec’s Harmonium. Died June 24 in Saint-Henri-de-Taillon, Que. He was 73.
Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press
Serge Fiori was an uncompromising visionary, dedicated Quebec nationalist and beloved, towering cultural icon in his home province as the leader of the francophone progressive rock group Harmonium. A chance to expand its popularity beyond La belle province was nixed when CBS Records offered the band $1-million to re-record its songs in English. The fluently bilingual Mr. Fiori replied, “non,” killing the deal.
Connie Francis
Chart-topping pop/country superstar. Died July 16 in Pompano Beach, Fla. She was 87.
Wally Fong/The Associated Press
“Who’s sad and blue?” a 19-year-old Connie Francis sang in 1957, “Who’s cryin’ too?” Sadly, it was the four-time-married Ms. Francis herself who endured romantic hardship and personal traumas while singing sad songs such as Who’s Sorry Now. “My personal life is a regret from A to Z,” she said in 1984. A relationship with fellow teen idol Bobby Darin was cut short when her domineering manager/father pulled a gun on the Splish Splash crooner. She sold more than 100 million records. Fun fact: Ms. Francis recorded the vocals for Tuesday Weld’s singing scenes in the 1956 film Rock, Rock, Rock!
Harvey Glatt
Music impresario and patron of the arts. Died Aug. 20 in Ottawa, at age 91.
Courtesy of Richard Glatt
At a time when the Ottawa’s only rock star was Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, the business savvy and bohemian flair of Harvey Glatt instigated an era of grooviness in the country’s capital. In 1968, the co-founder of Treble Clef record store chain and silent partner in the hip Le Hibou Coffee House took British pop star Graham Nash to see a nascent Joni Mitchell at the club, unwittingly instigating one of rock music’s greatest romances.
Hermeto Pascoal
Brazilian composer and multi-instrumentalist. Died Sept. 13 in Rio de Janeiro. He was 89.
Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters
The prolific, genre-eclipsing Brazilian, nicknamed the Sorcerer, was once described by Miles Davis as the “most important musician on the planet.”
Upon his death, Mr. Pascoal’s family asked on an Instagram post that his fans “let a single note ring − from an instrument, your voice, or a kettle − and offer it to the universe.”
D’Angelo
Grammy-winning R&B legend. Died Oct. 14, at age 51.
Rich Fury/Invision/AP
With his platinum-selling debut album Brown Sugar in 1995, Virginia native D’Angelo (born Michael Eugene Archer) ushered in the neo-soul era with a silk-smooth mix of hip-hop attitude, stacked vocal harmonies, gospel exclamation and measured R&B grooves.
The spotlight-shunning perfectionist recorded only three studio albums in his Grammy-winning career.
Jimmy Cliff
Charismatic reggae pioneer and actor, died at age 81, according to a family statement on Nov. 24.
Jose Jordan/AFP via Getty Images
The Jamaican‘s stage name was aspirational, Cliff being a reference to the career heights he sought to attain.
As the star of the 1972 crime film The Harder They Come and its accompanying soundtrack album, the bubbly artist was one of the first reggae stars to be heard outside his home country.
Steve Cropper
Guitarist of Booker T. & the MG’s. Died Dec. 3 in Nashville, at 84.
Gary Cameron/Reuters
Flashier guitarists achieved higher celebrity status, but Steve Cropper’s minimalist riffs and lean rhythms as a member of the Stax Records house band Booker T. & the MG’s grace some of pop music’s most memorable material, including Wilson Pickett’s funky In the Midnight Hour, the unthinkably hip 1962 instrumental Green Onions and Sam & Dave’s occupation-declaring classic, Soul Man. (Sam Moore died Jan. 10). As a producer, Mr. Cropper added the sounds of gulls and lilting waves to (Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay after his friend Otis Redding died in an airplane crash in 1967.
Vocalists
Andrew Couldridge/Action Images via Reuters
Dave Burgess, Tequila singer; Loretta Di Franco, operatic soprano (died Dec. 30, 2024); Paul Dutton, Canadian poet and oral sound artist; Zubeen Garg, Bollywood star; Sheila Jordan, idiosyncratic jazz stylist; Cleo Laine, scat-jazzing Brit; Steven Leckie, Viletones punk singer; Claude Morrison, effervescent tenor and Nylons co-founding member; George Olliver, handsome, dynamic Mandala front man; Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath singer/reality TV star; Terry Reid, turned down offers to sing for Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple; Bobby Sherman, well-coiffured teen idol; Peter Yarrow, of Peter, Paul and Mary.
Songwriters
Edip Akbayram, Turkish folk-rocker and noted socialist; Dick Damron, Albertan country music star; Rick Davies, Supertramp co-founder; Joe Ely, progressive-country Texas troubadour; David Johansen, New York Dolls front man; Tom Lehrer, musical satirist/math prodigy; Raul Malo, front man of Latin-tinged rockers the Mavericks; Chris Rea, Driving Home for Christmas musician; Johnny Rodriguez, country artist wrote Eagles hit Desperado; Rick Scott, theatrical soul and dulcimerist with B.C.’s Pied Pumkin; Kevan Staples, Rough Trade co-founder; Angie Stone, hip-hop pioneer; Todd Snider, free-spirited Americana star; Laura Vinson, Canadian Métis countryfolk artist; Tim Williams, Calgary roots-blues storyteller; Jesse Colin Young, Get Together singer.
Instrumentalists
Ethan Miller/Getty Images
Roy Ayers, soul-jazz vibraphonist; Amadou Bagayoko, blind Malian guitarist; Clem Burke, Blondie drummer; Jack DeJohnette, jazz drummer; Ace Frehley, Kiss guitarist; Gary Karr, virtuoso double bassist; Nobuo Kubota, Canadian experimental sound artist; Chuck Mangione, Feels So Good flugelhornist; Mick Ralphs, Bad Company and Mott the Hoople guitarist; Colin Tilney, British-Canadian harpsichordist; Phil Upchurch, guitarist for Michael Jackson and Donny Hathaway; Norman Marshall Villeneuve, Canadian bebop drummer; Joe Louis Walker, blues guitarist.
Canadian industry
Al Andruchow, record label executive; Alan Davis, concert-presenting founder of Small World Music; John Donabie, radio broadcaster; David Farrell, music journalist; Bill Gilliland, record label head and entrepreneur; Oskar Graf, luthier and co-founder of the Blue Skies Music Festival; Barry Haugen, promoter of Canadian country music; Sam Louie, owner of Toronto blues club Grossman’s Tavern; Neil MacGonigill, Calgary-based artist manager, producer and record label owner; Jane McGarrigle, sister/manager of Kate and Anna McGarrigle; Alain Nonat, champion of Canadian opera singers; Fay Olson, Toronto jazz scene luminary; Stu Phillips, oldest living member of Grand Ole Opry; Carole Vivier, Manitoba Film & Music CEO and film commissioner.
Music adjacent
Frederic J. BROWN / AFP via Getty Images
Carl Dean, loyal husband to Dolly Parton; Pam Hogg, Scottish fashion designer whose clients included Rihanna, Debbie Harry and Taylor Swift; Olivia Michalczuk, Winnipeg music journalist; Antony Price, fashion designer behind looks of David Bowie, Duran Duran and Lily Allen; Rob Reiner, writer/director of This Is Spinal Tap and its sequel; Ronnie Rondell Jr., Hollywood stuntman who was the man in flames on the cover of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here; Lalo Schifrin, film composer penned Mission: Impossible theme; Sweet Daddy Siki, flamboyant pro wrestler turned country crooner.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly identified a photo of Tommy Thayer as Ace Frehley, who left KISS in 2002. The photo has been replaced.
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