Departed During 2023

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Karearea
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Re: Departed During 2023

#81 Post by Karearea » Tue Apr 25, 2023 6:19 pm

One of the first records my father bought for the radiogram was "Jamaica Farewell";
somewhere I have a cassette-tape of Belafonte's songs including the catchy "Matilda";
I think my aunt and uncle got fed up with my cousins bellowing "Day-O!";
within the past year or so enjoyed the film Island in the Sun on YT.
Very pleasant singer and songs. Part of the music I grew up with.
And with the morn, those angel faces smile...

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Re: Departed During 2023

#82 Post by FD2 » Tue Apr 25, 2023 7:37 pm

A scratchy 78 rpm record of "Island in the Sun' played very often was my mother's all time favourite song and he was her favourite 'star' performer, only one lower than Gene Kelly. ;;)

They seem to have been replaced by twerking twerps these days whose only outstanding feature is the size of the backsides. :ymdevil: Where is the real talent or romance? Humbug! X(

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Re: Departed During 2023

#83 Post by OneHungLow » Thu Apr 27, 2023 5:04 pm

Harry Belafonte did a huge amount for exiled black South African singers and musicians in the USA, most notable of these folks being Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... forts.html

https://www.ops-normal.org/viewtopic.ph ... 04#p365404
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Re: Departed During 2023

#84 Post by G-CPTN » Thu Apr 27, 2023 5:11 pm


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Re: Departed During 2023

#85 Post by PHXPhlyer » Tue May 02, 2023 2:16 am

Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot dead at 84
Lightfoot followed the folk and country revolution of countercultural America and landed hits in the mid-1960s.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/obituaries ... -rcna82370

Gordon Lightfoot, Canada's answer to U.S. singer-songwriters who provided the soundtrack for baby boomers coming of age amid a countercultural revolution, died Monday, his publicist said. He was 84.

Lightfoot died at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto of natural causes, publicist Victoria Lord said.

Lightfoot accomplished a feat more rarified in popular music today, essentially becoming a one-man act who performed his own, critically acclaimed music, including his most-noted mid-1960s songs, "Early Mornin' Rain," and "For Lovin' Me."

He wrote songs for Peter, Paul And Mary and Marty Robbins, and his 1968 album, "Did She Mention My Name?" earned him his first Grammy nomination, for Best Folk Performance.

Lightfoot's rolling, guitar-based music, influenced by Bob Dylan and the era's folk artists, was equally at home on radio alongside Anne Murray as it was next to the Eagles.

He recorded five core albums for United Artists before continuing his career with Warner/Reprise through the 1990s. The 2012 release of "All Live" represented his only live album since those original United Artists releases.

In 2002, he suffered a near-death bout with illness but survived, according to his official biography, and continued to record and perform.

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Re: Departed During 2023

#86 Post by Karearea » Tue May 02, 2023 2:29 am

^ so many beautiful songs. Rest in peace, Gordon Lightfoot.
And with the morn, those angel faces smile...

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Re: Departed During 2023

#87 Post by Wodrick » Tue May 02, 2023 8:07 am

Karearea wrote:
Tue May 02, 2023 2:29 am
^ so many beautiful songs. Rest in peace, Gordon Lightfoot.
I can only agree RIP.

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Re: Departed During 2023

#88 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Tue May 02, 2023 12:40 pm

Saw him just a few years ago in New Brunswick, glad I did.

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John Bowcock obituary

#89 Post by OneHungLow » Fri May 05, 2023 6:02 pm

Civil engineer who created the largest artificial lake in the world in what is now Zimbabwe and founded a boating club there

OBITUARY -John Bowcock

There are, doubtless, many people who can say they helped to form a sailing club. Far fewer, though, can say they also helped to create the lake it was on. Especially if it is the largest artificial lake in the world.

In 1958 John Bowcock — then a recent graduate, later one of Britain’s most senior civil engineers — flew into Salisbury (now Harare) with his young family, and travelled across the country to the banks of the Zambezi. Here, every second, 3,000 tonnes of water pounded past, bound for the Indian Ocean, on an unfettered journey across the continent. Bowcock’s job was to fetter that water. He had been sent by the engineering consultancy Sir Alexander Gibb and Partners as part of a team to help stop it, store it and use it to power the country.

Over the next few months, the waters behind the Kariba dam he helped to design, as part of a multinational project, backed up. A small reservoir formed. So too did something else: the Kariba Yacht Club. For most of human history, the idea of starting a genteel boating society on the Zambezi would have been somewhere between preposterous and — depending on the stretch — suicidal. No longer.

Sitting on their verandas, sipping on Castle beers after a day on site, the engineers watched as the small reservoir became a big reservoir. They had an idea: they would construct some dinghies. Each week thereafter they met for a sail and a curry. Each week, they moved the clubhouse and jetty a little higher up the valley — fleeing the incoming waters.

Kariba.JPG

When the Kariba dam project started, the Zambezi split Northern and Southern Rhodesia. When it was finally completed, the river divided Zambia and what is now Zimbabwe — almost a third of the border was boating territory: the newly created Lake Kariba.

Bowcock, though, had other lakes to create. Before it was finished he went to work on the Roseires dam on the Nile, the Latyan dam in Iran and dams in southern Africa. He and his family returned to Britain in the late 1970s, and he moved to increasingly senior roles within Gibb — then eventually, the most senior ones of all: chief executive, followed by chairman.

Throughout, the turbines of the Kariba dam kept turning. The turbines saw the end of Empire in Africa, the fall of Ian Smith’s government in Rhodesia — and still, today, they provide power for the two countries on either side.

John Bowcock was born in 1931 in St Leonards-on-Sea in East Sussex and attended Hastings Grammar School. His parents were John, a master builder, and Mabel.

From an early age, his sister Lisa claims he enjoyed damming streams — many children do — but by the time he was a teenager there were signs that this hobby might become something more serious. After reading the book The Triumphs of Engineering, which describes the Boulder dam (known to most as the Hoover dam) on the Colorado, the young Bowcock declared his intention to become an engineer.


He was true to his word. Five years later, he was awarded a scholarship to Oxford to study engineering. After graduating with a first in 1953, he married Pauline Dalton. Because he was under 25 they had to obtain special permission to marry during his National Service in the RAF. With accommodation scarce, four of the officers were given permission to live in caravans on the grounds of the Rothschild mansion that housed the officer’s mess. During this time, their first daughter Anne was born.

If Anne spent her first weeks in a damp caravan, the next two daughters had a more exotic arrival. In 1957, Bowcock started at Gibb, where he was assigned to the Kariba dam project that would form his boating lake. Although his focus was more specifically on the 600MW hydroelectric scheme attached to it. His younger daughters Susan (Sue) and Janey spent their first years in a house overlooking a valley that later became a lake.

Theirs was destined to be a childhood spent in locations close to slowly growing lakes. Not all, though, were quite so salubrious. When Janey and Sue were one and two years old, the family moved to Sudan. Bowcock had been named resident engineer on the central 1km-long concrete section of the new Roseires dam, on the Blue Nile. There was no electricity or running water when they arrived — that was in part why they were building the dam. Instead, his wife had to cope with three children under six in 50C heat. To keep cool by day, they sometimes swam in the Nile while a ring of engineers splashed the water to scare the crocodiles. By night, desert rats would gnaw at the doors — eventually, they let them in to stop the noise.

By 1978, Bowcock was recalled and made a partner. At the time at Gibb, like a soldier in the army, you did your tour of duty abroad, before coming home and moving to greater seniority. In the final 20 years of his career, from the company head office in Reading he oversaw projects in Argentina and Africa. In 1989, Gibb was acquired by the American firm Law, but retained its identity. In 1995, on his partial retirement, Bowcock became chairman of the professional organisation, the Association of Consulting Engineers.

It takes a certain sort of mind to excel at engineering. Bowcock was clever. He was also precise. Colleagues remember he was kind, but had exacting standards in the office. Family remember he had exacting standards at home.

In retirement, breakfast came at 9am, and eggs were only allowed at the weekend. Coffee came mid-morning, accompanied by a frozen Twix. Then there was lunch, followed by tea at 4pm. Gin and tonic at the respectable hour of 6pm preceded dinner at 7.30pm. Somehow in between, he found time for a lot of golf and, in later life, bridge.

In 1999, he received the Prangey Award, the highest award of the International Federation of Consulting Engineers, which represents more than a million engineering professionals and 40,000 firms.

When engineers die, it is not hard to quantify their impact. They leave behind legacies that are, in both senses, concrete. Their life’s work is measured in tonnes of cement, in cubic kilometres of water, in megawatt hours of electricity, and in — something Bowcock always took pride in — the improvements to humankind that come from providing these basic services.

It is measured, for Bowcock, in the irrigated fields of Southern Sudan, the drinking water of Tehran and in the lights of Zimbabwe, twinkling across the vast Lake Kariba.

These days, most nights, there are also lights on the water itself. They represent a different legacy for him and his fellow engineers: the lights of the sailing boats, cruise ships and cargo vessels who now use the lake. Some might even have left that day from the jetty of the now-venerable Kariba Yacht Club.

John Bowcock, engineer, was born on October 25, 1931. He died on April 17, 2023, aged 91
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/john ... -pwh8l06wq
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Re: Departed During 2023

#90 Post by llondel » Mon May 15, 2023 2:19 am

Coincidence, but as we were approaching the Great Lakes, my wife played the "Edmund Fitzgerald", although I'd already heard it before. Then the next day I saw that Gordon Lightfoot had passed.

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The Dirty Dozen is Down Another One

#91 Post by PHXPhlyer » Fri May 19, 2023 8:23 pm

Jim Brown, legendary NFL Hall of Famer and civil rights activist, dies at 87
Brown was widely regarded as pro football’s greatest running back, who ended his sports career early to pursue acting and activism.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/sports/jim ... -rcna85359

Jim Brown, widely regarded as pro football’s greatest running back who ended his career early to pursue acting and civil rights activism, has died, his family announced. He was 87.

A spokeswoman for Brown’s family said he passed away peacefully in his Los Angeles home on Thursday night with his wife, Monique, by his side.

Brown played nine season for the Cleveland Browns and rushed for 12,312 yards and 106 touchdowns, the 11th and sixth most in NFL history, respectively.

But even those impressive numbers don’t fully reflect Brown’s magnificent NFL career, which he cut short to pursue a second career in Hollywood. He rushed for 5.2 yards per carry, by far the most of any player for more than 10,000 career rushing yards.

He led the Browns to the 1964 NFL title and Cleveland lost the 1965 title game.

Brown was on the London set of “The Dirty Dozen” and was going to report late to training camp in late summer 1966 when team owner Art Modell publicly ordered his star running back to return to America and be on time for preseason drills.

If Modell was bluffing, Brown wasn’t playing that game. He announced his retirement from London.

“This decision is final,” Brown said. “I’m no longer preparing mentally for football. I’m committing myself to other things. I’m not going to play again.”

Brown was among the most outspoken Black athletes of his era, advocating for them to use their platforms and elevate important causes of the day.

He famously convened what’s come to be known as the “Cleveland Summit.” That’s when athletes like Bill Russell and Lew Alcindor and activists like Carl Stokes gathered to hear from Muhammed Ali and eventually rally to his cause.

While Ali was stripped of his championship belts and he was convicted of draft evasion, the U.S. Supreme Court would in 1971 throw out the conviction, ruling that the government had failed to properly consider Ali’s application as a conscientious objector.

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Martin Amis Dead at 73

#92 Post by OneHungLow » Sat May 20, 2023 9:33 pm

Martin Amis, literary ‘enfant terrible’, dies aged 73
Author of ‘London Fields’ and ‘The Information’, who divided opinion over his writing style and personal views, died of oesophageal cancer at his home in Florida.
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-ente ... 24390.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Amis
Amis attended a number of schools in the 1950s and 1960s including Bishop Gore School, and Cambridgeshire High School for Boys, where he was described by one headmaster as "unusually unpromising"
How wrong some teachers can be.
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Re: Departed During 2023

#93 Post by G-CPTN » Wed May 24, 2023 8:03 pm

Tina Turner has died aged 83 after a long illness.
She had suffered ill health in recent years, being diagnosed with intestinal cancer in 2016.

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Re: Departed During 2023

#94 Post by Boac » Sat May 27, 2023 9:15 am

Don Bateman has died. His contribution to aviation safety through his work on EGPWS (aka 'Bitchin' Betty') and other safety systems was enormous. From The Seattle Times

In case anyone is blocked from that site, apologies for a long extract:
As late as the 1970s, the most common type of fatal aviation accident happened when a pilot in full control of the aircraft, but flying in poor visibility conditions or at night, lost awareness of the plane’s position and unwittingly either landed short of the runway or flew straight into a mountain.

Such accidents on commercial jets are very rare now, thanks to the work of Don Bateman.

Bateman gathered and led a small team in Redmond that for decades produced innovative safety systems in an intense drive to cut the number of aviation crashes.

Over 40 years, he worked tirelessly to add new systems that extended the protections offered to air travelers well beyond the initial goal of improving the pilot’s awareness of the terrain.

A legendary and inspirational figure in aviation, he was also known by those who worked closely with him as a kind and compassionate man.

On Sunday, surrounded by his family in his Bellevue home, Bateman died at 91 from complications of Parkinson’s disease.

Younger daughter Katherine McCaslin said the happy childhood memories of her “generous and humble” dad are also punctuated with news of plane crashes.

“My dad cared so much about all the lives lost,” she said. “He would tell us what went wrong and how it might have been prevented.

“He loved aviation,” said McCaslin. “He was driven to make the world safer.”

Captain Dave Mets, vice president of flight operations at Alaska Airlines, said Bateman invented “some of the most critical safety enhancements in modern aviation history.”

“The technologies have literally saved thousands of lives,” Mets added.

Indeed, Bateman is credited by industry experts as having saved more lives than anyone in aviation history.
Alerting pilots to danger

Bateman’s original invention in the early 1970s was an electronic box that delivered to flight crews a “ground-proximity warning system.”

It would warn pilots with an audible command to “Pull up! Pull up!” if they approached obstacles or terrain.

In the 1990s, the system was made more accurate through the addition of GPS aircraft positioning data and detailed, globe-spanning terrain data that was constantly updated.

Bateman sent teams to the former USSR to bring back detailed maps compiled for the Soviet-era military that added greatly to the digital database of terrain around the globe.

A color flight instrument display added clarity to this “enhanced” version, known as EGPWS, with a color-coded map showing the height of terrain ahead.

After 159 people died when an American Airlines 757 crashed into a mountain near Cali, Colombia, in December 1995, American decided to install the enhanced system on its entire fleet.

In 2001, the Federal Aviation Administration made it mandatory for all new planes carrying more than six passengers.
Assembling a “team of mavericks”

Small in stature and ruddy-faced, Bateman was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and spent part of his childhood on a farm.

In 1940, when he was 8, two military training planes — a Lockheed Hudson and an Avro Anson — collided in midair with 10 crew on board near his elementary school.

Bateman slipped out of school with a friend and went to the scene of the crash, which left an indelible impression.

The next day, his teacher reprimanded the two boys and ordered them to write a detailed account of what they had witnessed.

When he handed in his piece, she told him: “You sure can’t spell. You’re going to be an engineer.”

After graduating as an electrical engineer from the University of Saskatchewan, Bateman first worked at a telephone equipment company. In 1958 he took a job with Boeing in Renton, where he worked on avionics for the 707.

Less than two years later, he left to join United Control, an airplane electronics maker formed by ex-Boeing engineers in Seattle’s University District.

The company later moved to Redmond and went through a series of deals to become part of Sundstrand, then AlliedSignal, and then Honeywell.

Bateman assembled a small team to work exclusively on flight safety systems — over the years, typically fewer than 10 people.

Bob Champion, who came to manage the team for Bateman, said “he looked for innovators who could drive his ideas. He liked people who disagreed and argued so we’d have a good debate about how to solve a problem.”

He said Bateman called it a “team of mavericks.”

Yasuo Ishihara — whom Bateman hired in 1997 straight out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and whom he designated as his successor when he retired in 2016 — said Bateman’s attitude was always to get some new technology up and running, even if it was only 60% of the solution.

“His approach was, let’s get it done and fill in the other 40% as we gain experience over time,” Ishihara said.

The team tested its innovations in a simulator and on small planes flown out of Paine Field in Everett.

And Bateman sometimes flew over crash scenes in a Honeywell plane to test technologies that might have made a difference.

Bateman was himself a pilot, at one time president of the Redmond Flying Club. His son, Greg Bateman, said his father sometimes flew him to visit family in Saskatoon.

And he flew with his father across the country to Washington, D.C., to inspect an aviation crash site there.

He had energy to spare. In his 40s, he took up long-distance running and ran more than 50 marathons around the world, including in Seattle, Rome and London.

The members of his team were as impressed by his human qualities as by his technical vision.

Thea Feyereisen, who joined the team when Bateman was already famous in the industry, was terrified before meeting him, but was disarmed when this small, unassuming man wearing a baseball cap with the motto “Life is Good” introduced himself.

Ishihara said Bateman started as his boss but soon became a kind of father figure to the young engineer.

When Ishihara’s parents visited from Japan, Bateman invited them to his home.

Champion said that although “like all visionaries, he was driven and demanding,” Bateman became a very close friend and mentor.

“He was extremely compassionate, a loving man,” said Champion, overcome with emotion at the loss.
The “magic box”

The ground proximity warning technology was only the beginning of Bateman’s work.

He studied accident trends and developed and certified new capabilities to add to his original electronic box.

The system could take inputs from sensors anywhere on the aircraft, whichever data Bateman’s team chose to add. And because it communicated its outputs to the pilots both by displaying data and messages on the instrument panel and via aural commands, it became a powerful tool.

“It was kind of a magic box,” Feyereisen said.

Bateman’s team devised critical safety additions, including:

The Runway Awareness and Advisory System, which alerts pilots taxiing on the ground when they are approaching a runway. It also tells pilots coming in to land if they are not aligned with the runway.
The glide slope alert system, which warns pilots if their approach is excessively low or high.
The Runway Overrun Awareness and Alerting System, which tells pilots if they’re coming in too long or too hard and in danger of overshooting.
The Roll Recovery System, which detects an excessive bank angle and tells the pilot whether to roll left or roll right to prevent the plane rolling over.

Honeywell estimates it has produced about 65,000 EGPWS boxes installed on planes across the world.

All of the system additions above and more are available today and can be retrofitted to any airplane with one of the boxes.

However, they are not mandated, and adoption is slow as airlines and manufacturers want to avoid the extra pilot training new systems require.

The Runway Awareness and Advisory System is installed on Alaska Airlines and Air Canada aircraft, but most airlines don’t have it.

After an Aeroflot Nord 737 flipped upside down in a 2008 crash, the Roll Recovery System was installed on all new Boeing 737s, but is not on older models.

“Don would be beside himself when airlines would not equip their planes with those technologies that are available,” Feyereisen said.

Ishihara — who hopes to continue Bateman’s legacy at Honeywell — recently attended a National Transportation Safety Board meeting to discuss the recent spate of close calls and runway incursions in the U.S.

If widely adopted, both of the runway awareness systems could play a role in preventing such incidents.

In the few years before Bateman retired, he asked Ishihara to accompany him to industry meetings so he’d be ready to take up the baton.

“The more I went around with him, the more I realized how greatly respected he was by everyone in the industry,” Ishihara said.

Champion summed up how this team of crack engineers felt about their leader and his legacy.

“His leadership brought us together and made the world a safer place if you are on an airplane,” Champion said.

Bateman won numerous awards for his achievements.

In 2011, President Barack Obama presented him with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation at the White House.

Bateman worked until he was 84, then remained active with long walks every day until he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2019.

Bateman was predeceased by his first son, Dan. He is survived by his wife of more than 40 years, Mary; children Wendy Bastian, of Florida; Greg Bateman of Redmond; Katherine McCaslin of Bellevue; and Patrick Bateman of Seattle; as well as eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

A memorial service is planned for 2 p.m. June 9 at Bellevue Presbyterian Church.

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Re: Departed During 2023

#95 Post by Boac » Sun May 28, 2023 8:13 am

Emily Morgan ITV(UK) health editor at 45 from Lung Cancer. Such a measured and factual reporter with none of the over-excited hype we sometimes see.

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Re: Departed During 2023

#96 Post by G-CPTN » Sun May 28, 2023 8:55 am

Lest we forget:-
Tributes have been paid after an SAS hero who stormed the Iranian Embassy in 1980 died following a "very long illness".

Mel Parry QGM was described as one of the last surviving troopers to take part in the daring mission to end the six-day siege more than four decades ago.

Paying tribute on his website, former colleague and friend Bob Shepherd said Mel was "one of the finest men to have served in 22 SAS Regiment".

SAS veteran Bob, who served nearly two decades in the world-famous military unit, added: "I write this as he died from a very long illness today in Hereford.

"My heart goes out to Mel's family and close friends."

Former SAS member Chris Ryan posted a tribute to Twitter saying: "Mal, you were a gentleman and an incredible soldier.

"We first met when I joined B Squadron in the early 80s and you were the guiding light of the CT [Counter-Terrorism] world that we recognise today.

"God Speed and don't spare the HE [High-Explosive]."

Chris Ryan was part of the ill-fated eight-man Bravo Two Zero SAS patrol in Iraq.


It was on 30 April 1980 when six gunmen took over the Iranian embassy in Kensington and killed a member of its staff.

Mel was awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal for his role in ending the siege – dubbed 'Operation Nimrod' – said to have been the day the SAS became famous.

The SAS veteran is also famed for designing 'The Parry Blade' – a 9-inch long, razor-sharp combat survival knife.

Mel Parry's military service spanned 32 years, of which 27 were spent with the Special Forces.

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Re: Departed During 2023

#97 Post by G-CPTN » Sun May 28, 2023 12:57 pm

Mel Parry was aged 81 when he died.

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Re: Departed During 2023

#98 Post by FD2 » Tue Jun 06, 2023 11:22 am


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Re: Departed During 2023

#99 Post by tango15 » Tue Jun 06, 2023 1:20 pm

Very sad news indeed. Strangely enough, I was playing that song, one of my all-time favourites, on YouTube on Sunday night.

There is a bar in Ipanema called 'Garota de Ipanema' (Girl From Ipanema - originally called Bar Veloso), which genuinely is where Jobim was inspired to write the song. From the outside terrace, you can see Ipanema Beach. The adjoining street was renamed Avenida Vinicius de Moraes (he wrote the lyrics) after the song became famous. Rio's main airport, once called Galeão after the district in which it lay, was renamed Antonio Carlos Jobim, in honour of the man who wrote the music for the song, among many others.

I took my son there some years ago, and despite his relatively young age at the time, and the fact that the song was written ten years before he was born, he was totally amazed by the whole scene, not least because it is still treated by the locals as an ordinary bar. It is not the huge tourist trap that you might expect.

Here is a picture of the lady who inspired the song. A typical Brazilian beauty, of which there are so many - not just in Ipanema...
Helo_Pinheiro.jpg
Helo_Pinheiro.jpg (13.29 KiB) Viewed 1992 times

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Re: Departed During 2023

#100 Post by OneHungLow » Tue Jun 06, 2023 7:27 pm

tango15 wrote:
Tue Jun 06, 2023 1:20 pm
Very sad news indeed. Strangely enough, I was playing that song, one of my all-time favourites, on YouTube on Sunday night.

There is a bar in Ipanema called 'Garota de Ipanema' (Girl From Ipanema - originally called Bar Veloso), which genuinely is where Jobim was inspired to write the song. From the outside terrace, you can see Ipanema Beach. The adjoining street was renamed Avenida Vinicius de Moraes (he wrote the lyrics) after the song became famous. Rio's main airport, once called Galeão after the district in which it lay, was renamed Antonio Carlos Jobim, in honour of the man who wrote the music for the song, among many others.

I took my son there some years ago, and despite his relatively young age at the time, and the fact that the song was written ten years before he was born, he was totally amazed by the whole scene, not least because it is still treated by the locals as an ordinary bar. It is not the huge tourist trap that you might expect.

Here is a picture of the lady who inspired the song. A typical Brazilian beauty, of which there are so many - not just in Ipanema...

Helo_Pinheiro.jpg
+1

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-ente ... 52188.html

Astrud Gilberto, the bossa nova singer known for her instantly recognisable recording of “The Girl From Ipanema”, has died at the age of 83.

Gilberto’s son, Marcelo, confirmed to The Independent that she died on 5 June. The cause of her death was not disclosed.

Born Astrud Evangelina Weinert in Salvador, Bahia, on 29 March 1940, Gilberto recorded 16 studio albums and two live records over the course of her career, which began in the Sixties.

Gilberto’s version of “Garota de Ipanema” – originally composed in 1962 by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Vinícius de Moraes – happened by complete coincidence. Recorded in English under the title “The Girl from Ipanema” by the American saxophonist Stan Getz and Brazilian guitarist João Gilberto on 18 March 1963, the song was inspired by Jobim and de Moraes’s lust for Heloísa Pinheiro, the teenage girl who used to walk past their local bar near Ipanema beach.

The A&R engineer Phil Ramone, who was overseeing recording in New York in 1962, said Astrud Gilberto was the one who offered to sing on the track, after it was mooted that João, whom she had married in 1959, perform the lyrics translated from Portuguese to English by Norman Gimbel.

“Astrud was in the control room when Norm came in with the English lyrics,” Ramone told JazzWax in 2010. “Producer Creed Taylor said he wanted to get the song done right away and looked around the room. Astrud volunteered, saying she could sing in English. Creed said, ‘Great.’ Astrud wasn’t a professional singer, but she was the only victim sitting there that night.”

The track went on to be a global hit, selling more than five million copies worldwide and boosting the profile of bossa nova music internationally.

Gilberto performed on two songs on the 1964 album Getz/Gilberto, with her vocals for “The Girl from Ipanema” earning her a Grammy nomination for Best Vocal Performance by a female. The song itself won a Grammy for Song of the Year.

Speaking to The Independent last year, Marcelo – who, along with half-brother Gregory, performed and recorded with Gilberto – claimed that Gilberto struggled with the objectification she received from the press, and was poorly credited and remunerated for her work throughout her life. Her work on “The Girl from Ipanema” earned her just $120 in session fees.

It is also alleged that she did not receive full payments for her albums Now and That Girl from Ipanema, both released in the Seventies: “She re-recorded a disco version of ‘The Girl from Ipanema’ on the latter album, marking the second instance she would record the song, and never be paid for it,” Marcelo claimed.

“She believed in people and was trusting. They took advantage of her good nature, trust and desire to make music.”

Her son also asserts that her reputation in Brazil never reflected her massive contribution to the country’s music scene. She once stated that she was “very hurt” by the attitude of the Brazilian media.

“Brazil turned its back on her,” said Marcelo. “She achieved fame abroad at a time when this was considered treasonous by the press.”

After a concert in 1965, Gilberto never performed in her native country again.

Writing on Instagram, Gilberto’s granddaughter, Sofia, also a musician, said, “My grandma Astrud Gilberto made this song for me, it’s called ‘Linda Sofia’. She even wanted my name to be Linda Sofia!”

She continued: “Life is beautiful, as the song says, but I’m here to bring you the sad news that my grandmother became a star today, and is next to my grandfather João Gilberto.

“Astrud was the true girl who took bossa nova from Ipanema to the world,” she added. “She was a pioneer and the best. At the age of 22, she gave voice to the English version of ‘Girl from Ipanema’ and gained international fame.

“The song, a bossa nova anthem, became the second most played in the world mainly because of her. I love and will love Astrud forever and she was the face and voice of bossa nova in most parts of the planet. Astrud will forever be in our hearts, and right now we have to celebrate Astrud.”

Paul Ricci, a New York-based guitarist who collaborated with Gilberto, paid tribute as he shared the news of her death with his followers “I just got word from [Gilberto’s] son Marcelo that we have lost Astrud Gilberto,” he wrote. “He asked for this to be posted.

“She was an important part of ALL that is Brazilian music in the world and she changed many lives with her energy. RIP from ‘the chief’, as she called me. Thanks AG.”
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