NORFOLK, Va. — Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington, who died Sunday, made it big when rock ‘n’ roll was still a defining cultural force on par with today’s TikTok trends and superhero movies.
The iconic band’s last surviving co-founder was also perhaps the last flagpole in a once-powerful part of American music: Southern rock. Or at least a rebellious version of it that later became loosely tied to conservative politics and didn’t shy away from some of the problematic symbols of the South.
FILE – The band Lynyrd Skynyrd, from left, Gary Rossington, Billy Powell, Artimus Pyle, Ed King and Bob Burns appear backstage after being inducted at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in New York on March 13, 2006. Rossington, the iconic band’s last surviving cofounder, who died Sunday, March 5, was also perhaps the last flag pole in a once powerful part of American culture: Southern rock. (AP Photo/Stuart Ramson, File)
Stuart Ramson
“They’re the band that sort of codified a lot of what we think of as Southern rock,” said Stephen Thomas Erlewine, a music critic who writes for AllMusic, Pitchfork and Rolling Stone.
Lynyrd Skynyrd sang about Southern life while playing a form of muscular and gritty blues rock. The music could be raw or bloom into an extended guitar solo, like on their anthem “Free Bird.”
But the Lynyrd Skynyrd of 2023 bears little resemblance to the one of nearly 50 years prior, when the original incarnation featured a group of long-haired musicians who fit into the American counterculture and were certainly not embraced by Nixon-era Republicans, Erlewine said.
The band’s use of the Confederate flag back then was seen as “part of their rebellious streak,” Erlewine said. They didn’t really view the battle flag “as insurrectionist or pro-slavery, but more as garden variety rebellion,” he said.
In more recent decades, though, the band came to represent a more specific brand of politics, especially after the distinctions between Southern rock and country blurred and their audiences mixed.
Some of the band’s current members have been openly political. Last year, current lead vocalist Johnny Van Zant penned a song with his brother Donnie — apart from the band — that praised Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2024. Erlewine said the band’s sound — and that of Southern rock in general — eventually became “a sort of Red State, old-fashioned rock.”
The original members of Lynyrd Skynyrd, which released its first album in 1973, had an intense musical chemistry and were harder and grittier than other groups lumped under the Southern rock banner, such as The Allman Brothers Band and The Marshall Tucker Band.
FILE – Gary Rossington of the band Lynyrd Skynyrd performs on Day 1 of the 2015 Big Barrel Country Music Festival at The Woodlands on Friday, June 26, 2015, in Dover, Del. Rossington, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s last surviving original member who also helped to found the group, died Sunday, March 5, 2023, at the age of 71. (Photo by Owen Sweeney/Invision/AP, File)
They came to have three guitarists, whose layers produced a thick, brawny sound that could become “a locomotive for solos,” Erlewine said.
But the label “Southern rock” was nebulous at best, said Alan Paul, a music journalist who interviewed Rossington several times for Guitar World and for his upcoming book, “Brothers and Sisters: The Allman Brothers Band and the Inside Story of the Album That Defined the ’70s.”
The most accurate way to describe the genre shaped by wide-ranging influences “would be rock bands who sounded distinctly Southern — they didn’t hide anything about their Southernness,” Paul said.
The Georgia-based Allman Brothers Band hated the term, Paul said, because it was too reductive. But Lynyrd Skynyrd embraced the Southern rock label “to the point of making people uncomfortable,” Paul said.
The Florida band’s pervasive “Sweet Home Alabama” was a response to Neil Young’s “Alabama” and “Southern Man,” which rebuked slavery in the South. The song name-checks Young and obliquely references Alabama Gov. George Wallace, a staunch segregationist who later softened his views.
The band’s original lead singer and songwriter, Ronnie Van Zant, claimed the reference wasn’t supporting Wallace.
“A lot of people believed in segregation and all that. We didn’t. We put the ‘boo, boo, boo’ there saying, ‘We don’t like Wallace,'” Rossington concurred, in a documentary interview.
But Paul said he doesn’t really believe that — “I don’t think most people do.” Paul cites a memoir written by the band’s original manager, Alan Walden, who said Ronnie Van Zant was “a Wallace man all the way.”
And yet Erlewine also points out that Van Zant wrote a 1975 song, “Saturday Night Special,” that subtly questioned the uses of handguns.
“There was definitely a reactionary conservatism in parts of Skynyrd, but they could not be seen strictly in terms of what you would think of as conservative politics,” Erlewine said of their first incarnation.
A 1977 plane crash killed Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines and backing vocalist Cassie Gaines and injured Rossington. The band reformed a decade later with Johnny Van Zant taking his older brother’s role. Rossington was among the returning members and, as the lineup continued to change, would remain.
It was this reconstituted version of Lynyrd Skynyrd that seemed to really embrace a more conservative image, Erlewine and Paul each said.
In the 1990s, the group’s audiences began to overlap with those of Hank Williams Jr. and Charlie Daniels, a Southern rock pioneer whose sound became more country.
“A lot of the sounds that were progressive in the ’70s and rock-based became incorporated into country music, and became the sound of country music,” Erlewine said. “Lynyrd Skynyrd doesn’t really play country music but there’s an overlap between the audiences … it all becomes sort of like a certain kind of Southern music.”
He added: “Certain images, certain sounds, certain ideas were set in place. And it’s easier to keep playing to that stuff, because that’s where the audience is.”
The still touring Lynyrd Skynyrd regularly used the Confederate battle flag in their live shows for decades. Rossington told CNN in 2012 that the band would stop using the flag because of its association with hate groups, but then walked back the comment to say they would continue to use it, alongside the state flag of Alabama and the American flag.
In memoriam: Those we lost in 2022
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AP file, 2014
Bill Russell
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AP file, 1966
Queen Elizabeth II
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Loretta Lynn
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James Caan
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Sidney Poitier
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Madeleine Albright
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Olivia Newton-John
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Taylor Hawkins
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Jerry Lee Lewis
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AP file, 2006
Anne Heche
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AP file, 2021
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Castle Rock Entertainment/Everett Collections
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AP file, 2015
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Fred Ward
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AP file, 2011
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AP file, 2012
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AP file, 2010
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AP file, 2019
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Photo by Michael Schwartz/WireImage
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AP file, 1989
Orrin Hatch
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AP file
Ash Carter
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AP file, 2016
Bernard Shaw
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AP file, 2001
David McCullough
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AP file, 2011
Ken Starr
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AP file, 1998
Ivana Trump
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AP file, 2007
Charles McGee
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AP file, 2019
Vin Scully
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AP file, 2002
Bob Lanier
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AP file, 1977
Len Dawson
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AP file, 2017
Shirley Spork
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AP file, 1946
Scott Hall
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AP Images for WWE, File
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AP file, 2005
Ivan Reitman
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AP file, 2009
André Leon Talley
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AP file, 2016
Manfred Thierry Mugler
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AP file, 2001
Pat Carroll
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AP file, 2008
Tony Dow
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AP file, 2012
Philip Baker Hall
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AP file, 2014
Larry Storch
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AP file, 1966
Kevin Conroy
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AP file, 2018
Bobby Rydell
Bobby Rydell , a pompadoured heartthrob of early rock ‘n roll who was a star of radio, television and the movie musical “Bye Bye Birdie,” died April 5, 2022, at age 79. Between 1959 and 1964, Rydell had nearly three dozen Top 40 singles including “Wild One,” “Volare,” “Wildwood Days,” “The Cha-Cha-Cha” and “Forget Him.” He had recurring roles on “The Red Skelton Show” and other television programs, and 1963’s “Bye Bye Birdie” was rewritten to give Rydell a major part as the boyfriend of Ann-Margret.
AP file, 1962
Jeff Cook
Guitarist Jeff Cook , who co-founded the country group Alabama and steered them up the charts with such hits as “Song of the South” and “Dixieland Delight,” died Nov. 8, 2022. He was 73.
AP file, 2012
Hilary Mantel
Hilary Mantel , the Booker Prize-winning author who turned Tudor power politics into page-turning fiction in the acclaimed “Wolf Hall” trilogy of historical novels, died Sept. 22, 2022. She was 70. Mantel is credited with reenergizing historical fiction with “Wolf Hall” and two sequels about the 16th-century English powerbroker Thomas Cromwell, right-hand man to King Henry VIII — and in Mantel’s hands, the charismatic antihero of a bloody, high-stakes political drama.
AP file, 2009
Sonny Barger
Sonny Barger , the leather-clad fixture of 1960s counterculture and figurehead of the Hells Angels motorcycle club who was at the notorious Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Speedway, died June 29, 2022. He was 83.
AP file, 1980
Shinzo Abe
Shinzo Abe , a divisive archconservative who was Japan’s longest-serving prime minister and remained a powerful and influential politician after leaving office, has died after being shot during a campaign speech July 8, 2022. He was 67. Abe, a political blueblood, was perhaps the most polarizing, complex politician in recent Japanese history. At the same time, he revitalized Japan’s economy, led efforts for the nation to take a stronger role in Asia and served as a rare beacon of political stability before stepping down two years ago for health reasons.
AP file, 2014
Mickey Gilley
Country star Mickey Gilley , whose namesake Texas honky-tonk inspired the 1980 film “Urban Cowboy” and a nationwide wave of Western-themed nightspots, died May 7, 2022. He was 86. Overall, Gilley had 39 Top 10 country hits and 17 No. 1 songs. He received six Academy of Country Music Awards, and also worked on occasion as an actor, with appearances on “Murder She Wrote,” “The Fall Guy,” “Fantasy Island” and “The Dukes of Hazzard.”
AP file, 1999
William Hurt
William Hurt , whose laconic charisma and self-assured subtlety as an actor made him one of the 1980s foremost leading men in movies such as “Broadcast News,” “Body Heat” and “The Big Chill,” died March 13, 2022. He was 71. In a long-running career, Hurt was four times nominated for an Academy Award, winning for 1985’s “Kiss of the Spider Woman.” After his breakthrough in 1980’s Paddy Chayefsky-scripted “Altered States” as a psychopathologist studying schizophrenia and experimenting with sensory deprivation, Hurt quickly emerged as a mainstay of the ’80s.
AP file, 1986
Louise Fletcher
Louise Fletcher , a late-blooming star whose riveting performance as the cruel and calculating Nurse Ratched in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” set a new standard for screen villains and won her an Academy Award, died Sept. 23, 2022, at age 88.
AP file, 1976
Sacheen Littlefeather
Sacheen Littlefeather , the actor and activist who declined Marlon Brando’s 1973 Academy Award for “The Godfather” on his behalf in an indelible protest of Hollywood’s portrayal of Native Americans, died Oct. 2, 2022. She was 75. Littlefeather’s appearance at the 1973 Oscars would become one of the award show’s most famous moments. Clad in buckskin dress and moccasins, Littlefeather took the stage when presenter Roger Moore read Brando’s name as the winner for best actor.
AP file, 2010
Claes Oldenburg
Pop artist Claes Oldenburg , who turned the mundane into the monumental through his outsized sculptures of a baseball bat, a clothespin and other objects, died July 18, 2022, at age 93.
AP file, 2011
Tony Siragusa
Tony Siragusa , the charismatic defensive tackle who was part of one of the most celebrated defenses in NFL history with the Baltimore Ravens, died June 22, 2022. He was 55. Siragusa, known as “Goose,” played seven seasons with the Indianapolis Colts and five with the Ravens. Baltimore’s 2000 team won the Super Bowl behind a stout defense that included Siragusa, Ray Lewis and Sam Adams. Siragusa was popular with fans because of his fun-loving attitude, which also helped him transition quickly to broadcasting after his playing career.
AP file, 2009
Mike Bossy
Mike Bossy , one of hockey’s most prolific goal-scorers and a star for the New York Islanders during their 1980s Stanley Cup dynasty, died April 14, 2022, after a battle with lung cancer. He was 65. Bossy helped the Islanders win the Stanley Cup four straight years from 1980-83, earning the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP in 1982. He scored the Cup-winning goal in 1982 and ’83.
AP file, 1982
Guy Lafleur
Hockey Hall of Famer Guy Lafleur , who helped the Montreal Canadiens win five Stanley Cup titles in the 1970s, died at age 70. One of the greatest players of his generation, Lafleur, nicknamed “The Flower,” registered 518 goals and 728 assists in 14 seasons with Montreal.
AP file, 1983
Vangelis
Vangelis , the Greek electronic composer who wrote the unforgettable Academy Award-winning score for the film “Chariots of Fire” and music for dozens of other movies, documentaries and TV series, died May 17, 2022, at age 79.
AP file, 2001
Luicanne Goldberg
Lucianne Goldberg , a literary agent and key figure in the 1998 impeachment of President Bill Clinton over his affair with Monica Lewinsky, died Oct. 26, 2022, at the age of 87. Goldberg, a longtime conservative activist whose agency specialized in right-wing books, gained national prominence for advising her friend Linda Tripp to secretly tape Tripp’s conversations with Lewinsky, a former White House intern who had been involved in a sexual relationship with Clinton.
AP file, 1998
John Clayton
Longtime NFL journalist John Clayton , nicknamed “The Professor,” died March 25, 2022, following a short illness. He was 67. Clayton spent more than two decades covering the Pittsburgh Steelers for the The Pittsburgh Press and the Seattle Seahawks for The News Tribune in Tacoma. Clayton moved to ESPN in 1995, becoming one of the lead NFL writers for the company. Clayton appeared on TV and radio for ESPN and worked at the company for more than 20 years.
AP file, 2016
Bobbie Nelson
Bobbie Nelson , the older sister of country music legend Willie Nelson and longtime pianist in his band, died March 10, 2022. She was 91. An original member of the Willie Nelson and Family Band, Bobbie Nelson played piano for more than 50 years with her brother.
AP file, 2015
Eileen Ryan
Eileen Ryan , an actor who appeared on TV, in films and on Broadway and the matriarch of the steeped-in-the-arts Penn family, died Oct. 9, 2022. She was 94. Her TV credits include appearances on “The Twilight Zone,” “Bonanza,” “The Detectives,” “Marcus Welby, M.D.,” “Little House on the Prairie,” “Arli$$,” “Ally McBeal,” “NYPD Blue,” “ER,” “CSI,” “Men of a Certain Age” and “Grey’s Anatomy.” Her film roles included “Parenthood,” “At Close Range” and “Benny & Joon.”
AP file, 2008
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard , the iconic “enfant terrible” of the French New Wave who revolutionized popular cinema in 1960 with his first feature, “Breathless,” and stood for years among the film world’s most influential directors, died Sept. 13, 2022. He was 91. Over a long career that began in the 1950s as a film critic, Godard was perhaps the most boundary-breaking director among New Wave filmmakers who rewrote the rules for camera, sound and narrative — rebelling against an earlier tradition of more formulaic storytelling.
AP file, 1982
Art Laboe
Art Laboe , the pioneering radio DJ who read heartfelt song dedications to generations of loyal listeners and was credited with helping end segregation in Southern California during an eight-decade broadcast career, died Oct. 7, 2022. He was 97. Laboe is also credited with popularizing the phrase “oldies, but goodies.”
AP file, 2018
Judy Tenuta
Judy Tenuta , a brash standup who cheekily styled herself as the “Love Goddess” and toured with George Carlin as she built her career in the 1980s golden age of comedy, died Oct. 6, 2022. She was 72.
AP file, 2009
Pharoah Sanders
Pharoah Sanders , the influential tenor saxophonist revered in the jazz world for the spirituality of his work, died Sept. 24, 2022. He was 81. Sanders launched his career playing alongside John Coltrane in the 1960s.
AP file, 2014
James A. McDivitt
James A. McDivitt , who commanded the Apollo 9 mission testing the first complete set of equipment to go to the moon, died Oct. 13, 2022. He was 93. McDivitt was also the commander of 1965’s Gemini 4 mission, where his best friend and colleague Ed White made the first U.S. spacewalk. His photographs of White during the spacewalk became iconic images.
NASA photo
Marilyn Bergman
Marilyn Bergman , the Oscar-winning lyricist who teamed with husband Alan Bergman on “The Way We Were,” “How Do You Keep the Music Playing?” and hundreds of other songs, died Jan. 8, 2022. She was 93.
AP file, 1980
Gaspard Ulliel
French actor Gaspard Ulliel , known for appearing in Chanel perfume ads as well as film and television roles, died Jan. 19, 2022, after a skiing accident in the Alps. He was 37. Ulliel portrayed the young Hannibal Lecter in 2007’s “Hannibal Rising” and fashion mogul Yves Saint Laurent in the 2014 biopic “Saint Laurent.” He is also in the Marvel series “Moon Knight.”
AP file, 2015
Dan Reeves
Dan Reeves , who won a Super Bowl as a player with the Dallas Cowboys but was best known for a long coaching career highlighted by four more appearances in the title game with the Denver Broncos and the Atlanta Falcons, all losses, died Jan. 1, 2022. He was 77.
AP file, 2014
Don Maynard
Don Maynard , a Hall of Fame receiver who made his biggest impact catching passes from Joe Namath in the wide-open AFL, died Jan. 10, 2022. He was 86. When Maynard retired in 1973, he was pro football’s career receiving leader with 633 catches for 11,834 yards and 88 touchdowns. The Jets retired his No. 13 jersey.
AP file, 1968
Don Young
Alaska Rep. Don Young , who was the longest-serving Republican in the history of the U.S. House, died March 25, 2033. He was 88. Young, who was first elected to the U.S. House in 1973, was known for his brusque style. In his later years in office, his off-color comments and gaffes sometimes overshadowed his work.
AP file, 2019
Michael Lang
Michael Lang , a co-creator and promoter of the 1969 Woodstock music festival that served as a touchstone for generations of music fans, died Jan. 8, 2022. He was 77.
AP file, 2009
Lawrence N. Brooks
Lawrence N. Brooks , the oldest World War II veteran in the U.S. — and believed to be the oldest man in the country — died Jan. 5, 2022, at the age of 112.
AP file, 2019
Tom Parker
Tom Parker , a member of British-Irish boy band The Wanted, died March 30, 2022, after being diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. He was 33. Formed in 2009, The Wanted had a string of hit singles including U.K. No. 1s “All Time Low” and “Glad You Came.”
AP file, 2012
Rayfield Wright
Rayfield Wright , the Pro Football Hall of Fame offensive tackle nicknamed “Big Cat” who went to five Super Bowls in his 13 NFL seasons with the Dallas Cowboys, died April 7, 2022. He was 76.
AP file, 1975
Charley Taylor
Charley Taylor , the Hall of Fame receiver who ended his 13-season career with Washington as the NFL’s career receptions leader, died Feb. 19, 2022. He was 80. Taylor was the 1964 NFL rookie of the year and was selected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s All-1960s Team. The eight-time Pro Bowl selection was a first-team all-NFL pick in 1967.
AP file
Tommy Davis
Tommy Davis , a two-time National League batting champion who won three World Series titles with the Los Angeles Dodgers, died April 3, 2022. He was 83. Recruited to play for the Dodgers by Jackie Robinson, Davis batted .357 with 17 home runs, 104 RBI and 68 stolen bases in 127 games in that first season with the team. He won consecutive titles in 1962, when he hit .346 and led the NL in hits and RBI, and 1963, when he hit .326.
AP file, 1964
Bill Fitch
Bill Fitch , who guided the Boston Celtics to one of their championships during a Hall of Fame coaching career spanning three decades, died Feb. 2, 2022. He was 89. A two-time NBA coach of the year, Fitch coached for 25 seasons in the NBA, starting with the expansion Cleveland Cavaliers in 1970. He was Larry Bird’s first pro coach with Boston in 1979, won a title with the Celtics in 1981 and spent time with Houston, New Jersey and the Los Angeles Clippers.
AP file, 1981
Robert Morse
Robert Morse , who won a Tony Award as a hilariously brash corporate climber in “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” and a second one a generation later as the brilliant, troubled Truman Capote in “Tru,” died April 20, 2022. He was 90.
AP file, 2010
Dede Robertson
Dede Robertson , the wife of religious broadcaster Pat Robertson and a founding board member of the Christian Broadcasting Network, died April 19, 2022. She was 94.
AP file, 1988
Robert Krueger
Robert C. Krueger , who followed two U.S. House terms with a brief interim appointment to the Senate before launching a sometimes-hazardous diplomatic career, died April 30, 2022, at age 86.
AP file, 2004
Johnnie A. Jones Sr.
Johnnie A. Jones Sr. , a Louisiana civil rights attorney and World War II veteran who was wounded during the D-Day invasion of Normandy, died April 23, 2022. He was 102 years old.
AP file, 2019
Gary Brooker
Gary Brooker , the Procol Harum frontman who sang one of the 1960s’ most enduring hits, “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” died Feb. 19, 2022. He was 76. Brooker was singer and keyboard player with the band, which had a huge hit with its first single, “A Whiter Shade of Pale.” With its Baroque-flavored organ solo and mysterious opening line – “We skipped the light fandango, turned cartwheels cross the floor” — the song became one of the signature tunes of the 1967 “Summer of Love.”
AP file, 2006
Brent Renaud
Brent Renaud , an acclaimed filmmaker who traveled to some of the darkest and most dangerous corners of the world for documentaries that transported audiences to little-known places of suffering, died March 13, 2022, after Russian forces opened fire on his vehicle in Ukraine.
AP file, 2015
Ronnie Hawkins
Ronnie Hawkins , a brash rockabilly star from Arkansas who became a patron of the Canadian music scene after moving north and recruiting a handful of local musicians later known as the Band, died May 29, 2022. He was 87.
AP file, 2019
Andy Fletcher
Andy “Fletch” Fletcher , the unassuming, bespectacled, red-headed keyboardist who for more than 40 years added his synth sounds to Depeche Mode hits like “Just Can’t Get Enough” and “Personal Jesus,” died May 26, 2022, at age 60.
AP file, 2017
Ann Turner Cook
Ann Turner Cook , whose cherubic baby face was known the world over as the original Gerber baby, has died. She was 95. Cook was 5 months old when a neighbor, artist Dorothy Hope Smith, drew a charcoal sketch of her that was later submitted for a contest Gerber was holding for a national marketing campaign for baby food. The image was a hit, so much so that it became the company’s trademark in 1931 and has been used in all packaging and advertising since.
AP file, 2004
Dwayne Hickman
Dwayne Hickman , the actor and network TV executive who despite numerous achievements throughout his life would always be remembered fondly by a generation of baby boomers for his role as Dobie Gillis, died Jan. 9, 2022. He was 87.
AP file
Mark Shields
Political commentator and columnist Mark Shields , who shared his insight into American politics and wit on “PBS NewsHour” for decades, died June 18, 2022. He was 85.
AP file, 2006
James Rado
James Rado , co-creator of the groundbreaking hippie musical “Hair,” which celebrated protest, pot and free love and paved the way for the sound of rock on Broadway, died June 21, 2022. He was 90. “Hair,” which has a story and lyrics by Rado and Gerome Ragni and music by Galt MacDermot, was the first rock musical on Broadway, the first Broadway show to feature full nudity and the first to feature a same-sex kiss.
AP file, 2009
Bruton Smith
O. Bruton Smith , who emerged from North Carolina farm country and parlayed his love of motorsports into a Hall of Fame career as one of the biggest track owners and most successful promoters in the history of auto racing, died June 22, 2022. He was 95.
AP file, 2009
Marlin Briscoe
Marlin Briscoe , who became the first Black starting quarterback in the American Football League more than 50 years ago, died June 27, 2022. He was 76.
AP file, 1975
Vernon Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey’s father, Vernon Winfrey , died July 8, 2022, at the age of 89. Vernon served as a member of Nashville’s Metro City Council for 16 years and was a trustee for the Tennessee State University. Oprah spent her early childhood at her father’s hometown of Kosciusko, Mississippi, and in Milwaukee with her mother, Vernita Lee, who died in 2018.
AP file, 1987
William “Poogie” Hart
William “Poogie” Hart (center), a founder of the Grammy-winning trio the Delfonics who helped write and sang a soft lead tenor on such classic “Sound of Philadelphia” ballads as “La-La (Means I Love You)” and “Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time),” died July 14, 2022, at age 77.
AP file, 2006
David Warner
David Warner , a versatile British actor whose roles ranged from Shakespearean tragedies to sci-fi cult classics, died July 24, 2022. He was 80. Often cast as a villain, Warner had roles in the 1971 psychological thriller “Straw Dogs,” the 1976 horror classic “The Omen,” the 1979 time-travel adventure “Time After Time” — he was Jack the Ripper — and the 1997 blockbuster “Titanic,” where he played the malicious valet Spicer Lovejoy.
AP file, 1967
Issey Miyake
Issey Miyake , who built one of Japan’s biggest fashion brands and was known for his boldly sculpted pleated pieces as well as former Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ black turtlenecks, died Aug. 5, 2022. He was 84.
Kyodo News via AP, 2016
Bert Fields
Bert Fields , for decades the go-to lawyer for Hollywood A-listers including Tom Cruise, Michael Jackson, George Lucas and the Beatles, and a character as colorful as many of his clients, died Aug. 7, 2022, at age 93.
AP file, 2014
Melissa Bank
Melissa Bank , whose 1999 bestseller “The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing” was a series of interconnected stories widely praised for its wit and precise language and embraced by young readers, died Aug. 2, 2022, at age 61.
AP file, 2005
Albert Woodfox
Albert Woodfox , a former inmate who spent decades in isolation at a Louisiana prison and then became an advocate for prison reforms after he was released, died Aug. 4, 2022, of complications from COVID-19. He was 75.
AP file, 2016
Barbara Ehrenreich
Barbara Ehrenreich , the author, activist and self-described “myth buster” who in such notable works as “Nickel and Dimed” and “Bait and Switch” challenged conventional thinking about class, religion and the very idea of an American dream, died Sept. 1, 2022, at age 81.
AP file, 2005
Julie Powell
Food writer Julie Powell , who became an internet darling after blogging for a year about making every recipe in Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” leading to a book deal and a film adaptation, died Oct. 26, 2022. She was 49.
AP file, 2009
Jason David Frank
Jason David Frank , who played the Green Power Ranger Tommy Oliver on the 1990s children’s series “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers,” died in November. He was 49.
AP file, 2020
Robert Clary
Robert Clary , a French-born survivor of Nazi concentration camps during World War II who played a feisty prisoner of war in the improbable 1960s sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes,” died Nov. 16, 2022. He was 96.
AP file, 2014
Christine McVie
Christine McVie , the British-born Fleetwood Mac vocalist, songwriter and keyboard player whose cool, soulful contralto helped define such classics as “You Make Loving Fun,” “Everywhere” and “Don’t Stop,” died Nov. 30, 2022, at age 79.
AP file, 2014
Gaylord Perry
Baseball Hall of Famer and two-time Cy Young Award winner Gaylord Perry , a master of the spitball and telling stories about the pitch, died Dec. 1, 2022. He was 84. Perry made history as the first player to win the Cy Young in both leagues, with Cleveland in 1972 after a 24-16 season and with San Diego in 1978 — going 21-6 for his fifth and final 20-win season just after turning 40.
AP file, 1982
Kirstie Alley
Kirstie Alley , a two-time Emmy winner whose roles on the TV megahit “Cheers” and in the “Look Who’s Talking” films made her one of the biggest stars in American comedy in the late 1980s and early 1990s, died of cancer Dec. 4, 2022. She was 71. Alley starred opposite Ted Danson as Rebecca Howe on “Cheers,” the beloved NBC sitcom about a Boston bar, from 1987 to 1993. She would take a second Emmy for best lead actress in a miniseries or television movie in 1993 for playing the title role in “David’s Mother.” She had her own sitcom, “Veronica’s Closet,” from 1997 to 2000.
AP file, 2015
Stephen “tWitch” Boss
Stephen “tWitch” Boss , the longtime and beloved dancing DJ on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” and a former contestant on “So You Think You Can Dance,” died of suicide Dec. 13, 2022, at the age of 40. The dancer-DJ appeared in films like “Step Up: All In” and “Magic Mike XXL” and was featured in Disney+’s “The Hip Hop Nutcracker,” released this year. He also had placed as a runner-up on “So You Think You Can Dance” and later judged season 17 of the dance competition show.
AP file, 2022
Mike Leach
Mike Leach , the gruff, pioneering and unfiltered college football coach who helped revolutionize the passing game with the Air Raid offense, died following complications from a heart condition. He was 61. In 21 seasons as a head coach at Texas Tech, Washington State and Mississippi State, Leach went 158-107.
AP file, 2022
Paul Silas
Paul Silas , a member of three NBA championship teams as a player and LeBron James’ first coach in the league, died Dec. 10, 2022. He was 79. Silas took four NBA teams to the playoffs, winning exactly 400 games — 387 in the regular season, 13 more in the postseason.
AP file, 2012
Dorothy Pitman Hughes
Dorothy Pitman Hughes , a pioneering Black feminist, child welfare advocate and lifelong community activist who toured the country speaking with Gloria Steinem in the 1970s and appears with her in one of the most iconic photos of the second-wave feminist movement, died Dec. 1, 2022. She was 84.
AP file, 2014
Grant Wahl
Grant Wahl , an American journalist who helped grow the popularity of soccer in the U.S. and reported on some of the biggest stories in the sport, died Dec. 10, 2022, while covering a World Cup match between Argentina and the Netherlands. He was 49. Wahl, who wrote for Sports Illustrated for more than two decades and then started his own website, was a major voice informing an American public of soccer during time of increased interest after the U.S. hosted the 1994 World Cup. He also brought a critical eye to the organizational bodies of the international sport.
AP file
Mills Lane
Mills Lane , the Hall of Fame boxing referee who was the third man in the ring when Mike Tyson bit Evander Holyfield’s ear, died Dec. 6, 2022. He was 85. A boxer himself who won an NCAA championship in 1960, Lane went 10-1 as a pro before eventually making a much bigger mark in the sport as a referee. Respected for being tough but fair, his “Let’s get it on!” command became the final words heard before many memorable fights.
AP file, 1997
Franco Harris
Franco Harris , the Hall of Fame running back whose heads-up thinking authored “The Immaculate Reception,” considered the most iconic play in NFL history, has died. He was 72. Harris ran for 12,120 yards and won four Super Bowl rings with the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 1970s, a dynasty that began in earnest when Harris decided to keep running during a last-second heave by Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw in a playoff game against Oakland in 1972.
AP file, 1972
Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI, flanked by Monsignor Francesco Camaldo, left, and Bishop Piero Marini, greets the crowd from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican soon after his election on April 19, 2005. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, the German theologian who will be remembered as the first pope in 600 years to resign, has died, the Vatican announced Saturday Dec. 31, 2022. He was 95. (AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis, File)
Domenico Stinellis
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