Popular music for a new millennium
Popular music at the turn of the millennium was characterized by the confluence of two revolutionary trends. The first one was world music. The 1990s had been the decade of world music, when western musicians pillaged the rhythms, melodies and timbres of other ethnic cultures. In reality, western musicians had only scratched the surface of the vast repertoire of sounds created over the centuries by the rest of the world. The exploration and integration had just begun. The second trend was electronic/digital music. New instruments had always determined musical revolutions, because, tautologically, they allowed for new forms of music. The electronic/digital music was bound to have an even bigger impact because the new forms of music that it enabled were virtually infinite.
George Harrison
Original name: George Harrison, (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an award-winning English rock guitarist, singer-songwriter, author and sitarist best known as the lead guitarist for The Beatles. Following the band's breakup, Harrison had a successful career as a solo artist and later as part of the Traveling Wilburys super group. He was the first Beatle to have a number one album; All Things Must Pass. Harrison's cancer recurred in 2001 and was found to have metastasised. Despite very aggressive treatment, it was soon found to be terminal. Harrison died on 29 November 2001. He was 58 years old. Harrison's death was listed on his Los Angeles County death certificate as "metastatic non-small cell lung cancer". It was rumoured that the lung cancer had metastasised to the brain.
My Sweet Lord Awaits
Jeff Healey
Original name: Jeff Healey (born Norman Jeffrey Healey, March 25, 1966 – March 2, 2008) was a blind Canadian jazz and blues-rock guitarist and vocalist. He began playing guitar when he was three, developing his unique style of playing the instrument flat on his lap.
Healey lost his sight when he was eight months old to retinoblastoma, a rare cancer of the eyes. His eyes had to be surgically removed, and he was given artificial replacements. After living cancer-free for 38 years, he subsequently developed sarcoma in his legs; despite surgery for this, the sarcoma spread to his lungs and ultimately was the cause of his death.
Shades not need to See the Light.
Brad Delp
Original name: Bradley E. Delp (June 12, 1951 – March 9, 2007) was an American musician best known as the lead vocalist of the rock band Boston.
On March 9, 2007, Delp was found dead in his home in Atkinson, New Hampshire. Delp, who was only 55, died from the smoke of two charcoal grills he lit inside his sealed bathroom. He was found by his girlfriend Pamela Sullivan lying on a pillow on his bathroom floor with a suicide note pinned to his shirt stating that he was a "lonely soul". The official cause of death was listed as carbon monoxide poisoning.
The Brad Delp Foundation is here.
Layne Staley
Original name: Layne Thomas Staley (August 22, 1967 - ca. April 5, 2002) was the lead singer and co-lyricist of the rock group Alice in Chains and the supergroups Class of '99 and Mad Season. He struggled throughout his career as a musician with severe drug addiction, which eventually led to his death in April 2002.
On April 19, 2002, an unidentified person placed a call with 911 to say "She hadn't heard from…Staley in about two weeks." Staley was found dead in his home after "his mother and stepfather went to his condo with the police". The autopsy report later concluded that Staley died after injecting an extremely large mixture of heroin and cocaine known as a "speedball". Man In The Box Awaits you.