Deaths
- January 8 – George Baker, singer, 90
- January 10 – Howlin' Wolf, blues musician, 65
- January 16 – Vasco Campagnano, operatic tenor, 65
- January 18 – Friedrich Hollaender, composer, 79
- January 23 – Paul Robeson, singer, 77
- January 29 – Jesse Fuller, blues musician, 79
- January 30 – Mance Lipscomb, blues musician, 80
- January 31 – Evert Taube, composer and singer, 85
- February 5 – Rudy Pompilli, saxophone player and 20-year member of Bill Haley & His Comets, 50 (lung cancer)
- February 6 – Vince Guaraldi, jazz musician and pianist, 47
- February 9 – Percy Faith, bandleader and composer, 67
- February 12 – Sal Mineo, actor and singer, 37 (murdered)
- February 13 – Lily Pons, coloratura soprano, 77
- February 22 – Florence Ballard, The Supremes, 32 (coronary thrombosis)
- February 25 – Tarquinia Tarquini, operatic soprano, 93
- March 14 – Busby Berkeley, musical director and choreographer, 80
- March 19 – Paul Kossoff, guitarist, (Free), 25 (cerebral and pulmonary oedema)
- March 25 – Maria Zamboni, operatic soprano,
- March 26 – Duster Bennett, blues musician, 29 (car accident)
- April 8 – Phil Ochs, protest singer, 35 (suicide)
- April 25 - Alexander Brailowsky, pianist, 80
- May 12 – Rudolf Kempe, conductor, 65
- May 14 – Keith Relf, vocalist (The Yardbirds), 35 (cardiac arrest due to electrocution)
- May 15 – David Munrow, early music performer, 33 (suicide)
- May 21 – Harold Blair, operatic tenor, 51
- May 26 – Maggie Teyte, operatic soprano, 88
- June 6 – Elisabeth Rethberg, operatic soprano, 81
- June 25 – Johnny Mercer, singer and songwriter, 66
- June 28
- Malcolm Lockyer, film composer and conductor, 52
- Yakov Zak, pianist and music teacher, 62
- August 2 – Cecilia (singer), Spanish singer-songwriter, 27 (road accident)
- August 6 – Gregor Piatigorsky, Russian cellist, 73
- August 24 - Michael Head, composer, 76
- August 26 – Lotte Lehmann, opera singer, 88
- August 27 – Mukesh, Indian singer, 53 (heart attack)
- August 29 – Jimmy Reed, US blues musician, 50
- September 26 – L.C. Robinson, US blues musician, 61
- October 3 – Victoria Spivey, US singer, pianist and composer, 69
- October 11
- Connee Boswell, US singer, member of the Boswell Sisters, 68
- Alfredo Bracchi, Italian lyricist, 78
- Werner Haas, pianist, 45 (car accident)
- October 21 – Jean Berveiller, organist and composer, 73
- November 12 – Walter Piston, composer, 82
- December 4
- Benjamin Britten, composer, 63
- Tommy Bolin, guitarist, 25 (drug-induced suffocation)
- December 6 – Raymond Hanson, composer, 63
- December 28 – Freddie King, blues musician, 42
Read more about this topic: 1976 In Music
Famous quotes containing the word deaths:
“I sang of death but had I known
The many deaths one must have died
Before he came to meet his own!”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“There is the guilt all soldiers feel for having broken the taboo against killing, a guilt as old as war itself. Add to this the soldier’s sense of shame for having fought in actions that resulted, indirectly or directly, in the deaths of civilians. Then pile on top of that an attitude of social opprobrium, an attitude that made the fighting man feel personally morally responsible for the war, and you get your proverbial walking time bomb.”
—Philip Caputo (b. 1941)
“You lived too long, we have supped full with heroes,
they waste their deaths on us.”
—C.D. Andrews (1913–1992)