1983 in Music - Deaths

Deaths

  • January 5 – Amy Evans, operatic soprano and actress, 98
  • January 7 – Edith Coates, operatic mezzo-soprano, 74
  • January 28 – Billy Fury, singer, 42 (heart attack)
  • January 31 – Lorraine Ellison, soul singer, 51
  • February 4 – Karen Carpenter, singer and drummer, 32 (cardiac arrest due to anorexia nervosa)
  • February 8
    • Charles Kullman, operatic tenor, 80
    • Alfred Wallenstein, cellist, 84
  • February 12 – Eubie Blake, pianist, 96
  • February 18 – Leopold Godowsky, Jr., violinist and chemist, 82
  • February 22 – Sir Adrian Boult, conductor, 93
  • February 23 – Herbert Howells, organist and composer, 90
  • February 28 – Winifred Atwell, pianist, 69
  • March 6 – Cathy Berberian, singer and composer, 57
  • March 7
    • Igor Markevitch, Ukrainian composer and conductor, 70
    • William Walton, British composer, 80
  • April 4 – Danny Rapp (Danny and the Juniors), 41 (suicide by gunshot)
  • April 5 – Cliff Carlisle, country and blues singer, 79
  • April 13 – Dolo Coker, jazz pianist and composer, 55
  • April 14 – Pete Farndon (The Pretenders), 30 (drug overdose)
  • April 17 – Felix Pappalardi, producer and bassist, 43 (gunshot)
  • April 23 – Earl Hines, jazz pianist, 79
  • April 30
    • Muddy Waters, blues singer and guitarist, 70 (heart attack)
    • George Balanchine, choreographer, 79
  • May 23
    • George Bruns, film composer, 68
    • Finn Mortensen, composer and music critic, 61
  • May 25 – Paul Quinichette, saxophonist, 67
  • June 2 – Stan Rogers, folk musician, 33
  • June 25 – Alberto Ginastera, Argentine composer, 67
  • July 4 – Claus Adam, cellist, 66
  • July 5 – Harry James, bandleader, 67
  • July 12 – Chris Wood, rock musician, 39
  • July 23 – Georges Auric, composer, member of Les Six, 84
  • July 27 – Jerome Moross, composer, conductor and orchestrator, 69
  • July 30 – Howard Dietz, lyricist, 86
  • August 2 – James Jamerson, bassist, 47
  • August 3 – Helge Bonnén, pianist and composer, 87
  • August 6 – Klaus Nomi, singer, 39 (complications from AIDS)
  • August 13 – Zdeněk Liška, film composer, 61
  • August 14 – Omer Létourneau, pianist, organist, composer and conductor, 92
  • August 17 – Ira Gershwin, lyricist, 86
  • August 24 – Arkady Filippenko, composer, 71
  • September 5 – John Gilpin, dancer, 53 (heart attack)
  • September 24 – Isobel Baillie, operatic soprano, 88
  • September 25 – Paul Jacobs, pianist, 53 (complications from AIDS)
  • October 16
    • Øivin Fjeldstad, violinist and conductor, 80
    • George Liberace, violinist and arranger, 72
  • November 3 – Alfredo Antonini, conductor, 82
  • November 7 – Germaine Tailleferre, composer, only female member of Les Six, 88
  • November 19 – Tommy Evans, bassist of the rock group Badfinger, 36 (suicide)
  • December 6 – Lucienne Boyer, singer, 80
  • December 11 – Simon Laks, Polish composer and violinist, 82
  • December 28 – Dennis Wilson, member of the Beach Boys, 39 (drowned)
  • date unknown – Pat Smythe, jazz pianist, 59 or 60

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Famous quotes containing the word deaths:

    “As deaths have accumulated I have begun to think of life and death as a set of balance scales. When one is young, the scale is heavily tipped toward the living. With the first death, the first consciousness of death, the counter scale begins to fall. Death by death, the scales shift weight until what was unthinkable becomes merely a matter of gravity and the fall into death becomes an easy step.”
    —Alison Hawthorne Deming (b. 1946)

    “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)

    “You lived too long, we have supped full with heroes,
    they waste their deaths on us.”
    —C.D. Andrews (1913–1992)