Passages

[zedz]

Musicians who just put in the work on the chitin circuit

Surely how The Beatles got so big

(sorry, couldn't resist)

Came here for the film talk, stayed for the coleopterology jokes.

[FrauBlucher]

Tina Turner's comeback in the mid 80's was amazing, but she was amazing before that as witnessed by this Don Kirshner's Rock Concert from 1976. For those not familiar with Don Kirshner, he was a rock promotor that had a late night TV show in the States. They finish with Sly Stone's Higher. She kicks ass

Maybe this thread should be separated to her own

[hearthesilence]

The Tina Turner Comeback Legend (TM) has become calcified into a major-label-does-good myth, but it glosses over the crucial role played by Heaven 17 / B.E.F. They brought her in as one of the vocalists on their Music of Quality and Distinction covers album, and her blasting rendition of 'Ball of Confusion' was issued as a single in 1982. They followed this up with a cover of 'Let's Stay Together' the following year, which was her actual comeback single (not 'What's Love Got to Do With It'). It went Top 10 around the world, paving the way for the success that followed. So it wasn't really the One True Record Exec pulling all the corporate strings that revived her career, but a couple of electro-nerds from Sheffield trying to prolong the Northern Soul revival.

That's going too far in the other direction. Heaven 17 definitely proved she could have a hit contemporary record, but the fact remains she still struggled to get a record deal as well as the full support of the label she ultimately signed with, not myth. And there's nothing A&R rep John Carter went through that isn't that unusual either - sometimes, you need an executive who will fight for you, and you even see the opposite effect happen when said executive gets fired and the artist or production company in question loses their deal or support. (This is ESPECIALLY egregious in the film business - remember what happened at Columbia with Housekeeping, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, etc. after David Puttnam was forced out? And how he was the reason those films got financed in the first place?)

[Ovader]

Ari Boulogne, son of Nico and you know who.

[Ovader]

Gary Kent, Fabled B-Movie Stuntman, Actor and Director, Dies at 89

[beamish14]

Marlene Clark, star of Bill Gunn’s Stop and Ganja & Hess

[Fred Holywell]

Actor/singer Ed Ames.

[Fred Holywell]

George Maharis, star of the TV series "Route 66," at 94.

[colinr0380]

Gary Kent, Fabled B-Movie Stuntman, Actor and Director, Dies at 89

Just noted this and wanted to note that he is in a small role in Targets as the guy who gets shot and falls from the gas tower. As a stuntman turned actor, he has a lot of stunt work under his belt, the earliest on Monte Hellman's two films The Shooting and Ride In The Whirlwind. He is also an actor in one of Ray Dennis Steckler's early films, The Thrill Killers. I also wanted to particularly note that he starred in a number of roles for Don Jones, particularly the 1973 film in which he is one of the leads Schoolgirls in Chains (very NSFW), which came perilously close to landing on the UK's video nasty list (I think it ended up as a Section 3 title, where it was not banned, or banned and then eventually allowed to be released, but more was being kept an eye on - probably because of its particularly salacious title - and withdrawn before anything happened to it), but he is also in the slasher film The Forest and 1988's Lethal Pursuit from the same director. That sounds like an Arrow boxset waiting to happen.

[clownmeat]

French-Canadian actor Michel Côté

[Pavel]

Peter Simonischek, who gave a truly great performance as the titular character in Toni Erdmann

[GaryC]

Australian screenwriter Mac Gudgeon, on 29 May, aged 74.

[beamish14]

Glenn Farr, one of five editors who won an Oscar for their work on Philip Kaufman’s The Right Stuff. Among his other credits is the fascinatingly bizarre John Ritter/Jim Belushi comedy Real Men(1987)

[senseabove]

Doesn’t appear to have hit the English press yet, but: Margit Carstensen has died at 83.

[agnamaracs]

Songwriting legend Cynthia Weil

[dadaistnun]

Bernt Rosengren

[Matt]

Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho

If you’re even the slightest bit interested in opera, the 2021 Arte TV telecast of her opera Innocence is a great piece of staging in general and staging for a screen in particular. Doesn’t hurt that the music is great and the story is very moving.