This year there have been a lot of iconic people that have passed away, as I'm sure that everybody is well aware of, and I know that I have been affected by a few of them, and know that some people have been peeved with my responses to these deaths.
I've always hated the word "death", and what that signifies. No matter how many of my family or friends pass away, it still affects me, and especially so when one of my grandfathers died, who I was especially close to. My grandad, Tom Mountney, was, and still is, one of my heroes xxx
When it comes to celebrities that I don't personally know, I'm almost embarrassed in a way, because I didn't actually "know" them, but they made an impression on me in some way or another.
Not that he died this year, but rather a year ago today (as I'm writing this part), the bassist/singer Lemmy of Motörhead, embodied what I saw as a pure rock n roll lifestyle. Whenever I saw a picture of him, he was impressive in the fact that he quite literally was what you could see - he didn't beat around the bush with what he thought. I wish that I could be more like that!
David Bowie I wrote about back in January, but a great memory I have is of the incredible way that he changed from the Let's Dance/Tonight era guy into the immaculately smart (I loved that black suit) rock star of Tin Machine, and very quickly he then went from that to a great experimenter around the time that I started performing, and he would always impress me with his frequently unpredictable output.
I think that the actor Alan Rickman died around that time as well, and that was a big shock at the time.
The earliest memory of Alan Rickman was of him playing the very British sounding German man Hans Gruber in the famous Christmas film Die Hard, and I've since seen him in a heck of a lot more - the Harry Potter films, a few Shakespearean films, Love Actually, and more. A real presence in every film that he was in, even when he wasn't the main part - he was incredibly brilliant as the Sherrif of Nottingham in Robin Hood Prince Of Thieves!
The death of Prince was a really big surprise too, and more so in my opinion because he was, to my mind, making a comeback to the larger world with more commercially available material than he had in a long time - he'd actually been issuing material privately to fans through his website, and through free albums with newspapers here in the U.K. I was always fascinated with his musical flitting, in that he didn't particularly think of genre in his music, but just went where the songs took him to, and where he felt inspired to go. That kind of musical experimentation was of course a huge influence to me, and one of my bands did cover the song Controversy back in the day!
George Martin had famously been the main producer for The Beatles, and everyone knows how much I love The Beatles, but then I love other productions of his for artists such as Ultravox, Jeff Beck, America, and many others.
Victoria Wood was a great writer, comedienne, actress, musician, and all round good egg. I remember the Acorn Antiques sketches with her great friend Julie Walters constantly getting the best lines, all written by Victoria, as well as Victoria's funny songs from the piano, and so much more.
The radio presenter Terry Wogan was a funny guy to my mind, where I remember him from the radio (radio two breakfast), the game show Blankety Blank, and his television chat show where I saw him interview Paul McCartney, George Best, and many others.
Muhammad Ali was the greatest boxer of all time, and so much more! He was an incredibly smart, wise, and funny guy from what I saw of him on television. I'm trying to think of how to word this, but I can also completely understand how inspirational he was to everyone, no matter about their skin colour! He had an incredible charisma about him, that you had to take notice of him, in my opinion.
Ronnie Corbett was an entertainer that I mainly remembered from the wonderful comedy series The Two Ronnies that he did with Ronnie Barker. That show was something that I remember so much of when I was younger, and at times it was watched by audiences of around eighteen and a half million. Something that is unlikely to happen nowadays in the U.K.
Gene Wilder I wrote about in a specific blog at the time, and I have great memories of his films!
Robert Vaughn was from one of my favourite shows as a kid, which was The Man From Uncle (as repeats I think).
The songwriter/singer/bassist/guitarist Greg Lake and keyboard player/composer Keith Emerson, both of Emerson Lake & Palmer died in 2016, and they were a group that were incredibly important in the history of progressive rock. Through them I was introduced to some fantastic classical pieces as well. Their performances of pieces like Fanfare For The Common Man, Hoedown, etc, shaped my love for a wider range of music.
Rick Parfitt of Status Quo... Well, Status Quo were a band that I always enjoyed listening to, all the way from their Pictures of Matchstick Men phase, through the fabulously dirty twelve-bar rock of the seventies, some of the poppier eighties (In The Army Now, etc), and I thoroughly lapped up the recent acoustic interpretations of their music, but then I'd enjoyed their previous acoustic songs (Rock 'n Roll, Living On An Island).
George Michael died on Christmas Day, and that really did shock me.
I remember when his band Wham first came out that I thought they were sort of cheesy with songs like Bad Boys, Young Guns Go For It, etc. As they continued they got more interesting. Edge Of Heaven was a great song! I've reevaluated my opinion of them recently as well, and think there's some great stuff there!
His solo career though is what grabbed my attention! Faith was a wonderful reinvention, followed by the beautiful Listening Without Prejudice Vol 1 ( I think he maybe started Vol 2 perhaps, but shelved it due to his record label disagreements perhaps).
His next album, Older, is possibly my favourite of his, which contains Fastlove, Jesus To A Child, Star People, and more.
When I heard about the passing of the actress/writer Carrie Fisher I was really shocked!
I'll admit that my first experience of Carrie was watching her play Princess Leia in the Star Wars films!
Unlike a lot of my friends of a similar age to me, I didn't see the first Star Wars film at the cinema in 1977, but rather on a pirate video in 1981!
By that point I'd seen the television series Buck Rogers In The 25th Century, which featured the very beautiful actress Erin Gray, who, as a very young whipppersnapper under the age of ten, I sort of loved. Not in the way of fancying, because it was too early for all that.
Carrie as Princess Leia was probably my next crush shall we say.
I also remember Carrie very well from The Blues Brothers, which is one of my favourite films. I was surprised by her performance in that, and have seen her in a few other things.
Her fight against mental health issues is incredibly inspiring, and I regret that I never met her, although I'd feel difficult broaching the Star Wars subject because I know that there was more to her, but there's no denying it's importance in my life!
Me and Andrew Dexter at school learnt the entire dialogue of the original Star Wars film, and we would piss off the rest of our school by doing scenes where we would take a role each (I was Luke Skywalker and he was Han Solo).
I suppose that what I'm getting at here is that these people were terribly important to my history in one way or another.
In a way, we have lost a lot of "iconic" people this year and, unfortunately, we will carry on doing so.
A lot of these people have come from something that's incredibly important, such as the phenomenon of Star Wars (both Carrie and the actor Kenny Baker), David Bowie's long and constantly evolving career, the inspirational Muhammad Ali...
Others over the year have also included singer/guitarist Glen Frey, writers Harper Lee and Richard Adams, Caroline Aherne...
I'm sure that everyone could shout out more!
What I'm trying to say is that these sorts of people are cut from a different cloth to a lot of today's celebrities. There are very few now with that specialness about them.
As I've said to someone recently, there is very little that has the cultural importance of Star Wars, Bowie, Prince, and a lot of these people. I doubt that anyone will get to that level again, and I know that some will argue with that opinion, but no one will take the risks required these days to bring about such radical cultural changes as these!
There are others still around with the cultural importance (Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise...).
However, these will, as with everyone of us, eventuallly pass away, and that too will bring an outpouring, because of that cultural significance.
I hope that all of this makes sense, and I apologise for the length of this piece. It's a big subject, and I could possibly have gone into more detail in fact, but I decided to rein myself in a little!
Thank you for reading. Please take care.
December 28th 2016 (46 years, 1 month, and 2 days old).
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