R.I.P. CELEBRITY DEATHS 2020(NON WRESTLERS)

[on_the_edge]

What a resume for Crane. Many of my favorites from Mighty Mouse and Super Friends of my youth to Beavis and Butthead of my teens and early adult years.

[jimsteel]

RIP Kevin Greene. PIttsburgh Steelers great, NFL Hall of Famer, Handful of Pro Wrestling matches if that many. 58 years old.

[jimsteel]

K.T. Oslin, Country Singer-Songwriter of ’80’s Ladies,’ Dead at 78

K.T. Oslin, the first female songwriter to win the CMA Award for Song of the Year, for her 1987 hit “80’s Ladies,” died Monday at 78. Oslin had been battling Parkinson’s disease and was diagnosed with Covid-19 last week, according to her friend, the journalist Robert K. Oermann, who confirmed her death.

Oslin, born Kay Toinette Oslin in Arkansas, was 45 when she released her chart-topping debut country album, 1987’s 80’s Ladies — a remarkable feat then for a woman in country music and a near impossibility today. Along with the Top 10 title track, the LP included a pair of country Number Ones in “Do Ya” and “I’ll Always Come Back.” But it was the nostalgic ballad “80’s Ladies” — about a trio of girls who “burned our bras…dinners…and our candles at both ends” — that became her signature. “There ain’t been much these ladies ain’t tried,” Oslin sang.

[Bazzy]

Manchester area Piccadilly 261 radio (later Piccadilly Gold 1152 AM) Disco Jockey Umberto Saoncella has died R.I.P

[jimsteel]

Eileen Pollock: TV sitcom Bread's Lilo Lil actress dies at 73

Actress Eileen Pollock, best known for playing Lilo Lil in 1980s TV sitcom Bread, has died at the age of 73.

Pollock, from Belfast, played Freddie Boswell's brassy mistress in the hit comedy about a large Liverpool family.

She also had a long stage career and appeared in such films as Far and Away, starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, and Mike Leigh's Four Days in July.

[jimsteel]

Rosalind Knight death: Friday Night Dinner and Carry On star dies, aged 87

Knight also appeared in Gimme, Gimme, Gimme and About a Boy

[TTX]

RIP to all of them.

[jimsteel]

Rebecca Luker, 3-Time Tony-Nominated Performer, Passes Away at 59

The radiant soprano made her Main Stem debut in The Phantom of the Opera and was most recently seen on Broadway in Fun Home.

Rebecca Luker, the three-time Tony-nominated actor who possessed a remarkably rich soprano, passed away December 23 following complications from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease).

[jimsteel]

R.I.P. John Fletcher, aka "Ecstacy" of Whodini at age 56

John Fletcher, a.k.a. “Ecstasy,” vocalist and co-founder of the hip hop group Whodini. He was 56.

Started in the early 80s in Brooklyn by Fletcher, vocalist Jalil Hutchins and turntable artist DJ Drew Carter, a.k.a. Grandmaster Dee, Whodini was one of the first rap groups to add R&B twist to their music, thus laying the foundation for a new genre - new jack swing. The group made its name with good-humored songs such as "Magic's Wand" (the first rap song accompanied by a video), "The Haunted House of Rock", "Friends", "Five Minutes Of Funk" and "Freaks Come Out at Night".

To call Whodini a smash would understate the immenseness of their popularity during the 1980s and 90s. They issued six studio albums – four of which were certified platinum – and boasted more than a dozen Billboard hit singles..

Whodini was among the first hip hop groups to cultivate a high-profile national following for hip hop music and made significant inroads on urban radio. Their accessible songs, clever videos and well-regarded concerts made Whodini hip-hop royalty, and one of the most iconic groups in the genre’s history.

[jimsteel]

Leslie West, Guitarist and Singer of Mountain, Dead at 75

The hard-rock pioneer and “Mississippi Queen” co-author suffered a heart attack earlier this week.