Deaths
- January 1 – Alexis Korner, blues musician, 55 (lung cancer)
- January 18 – Vassilis Tsitsanis, Greek composer, 69
- January 21 – Jackie Wilson, singer, 49 (pneumonia)
- January 23 – Samuel Gardner, violinist and composer, 92
- January 30 – Luke Kelly, member of The Dubliners, 43 (brain tumour)
- February 1 – Ada "Bricktop" Smith, singer and dancer, 89
- February 15 – Ethel Merman, singer and actress, 76
- March 9 – Imogen Holst, conductor and composer, 76
- April 1 – Marvin Gaye, singer/songwriter, 44 (gunshot)
- April 6
- Jimmy Kennedy, Irish-born British songwriter, 81
- Hryhory Kytasty, composer, 77
- April 20 – Mabel Mercer, cabaret singer, 84
- April 23 – Juan Tizol, trombonist and composer, 84
- April 26 – Count Basie, jazz musician, 79
- April 27 – Z.Z. Hill, blues singer, 48
- May 1 – Gordon Jenkins, US conductor, songwriter and pianist, 73
- May 29 – Sanford Gold, jazz pianist, 72
- June – Mohamed Mooge Liibaan, singer and instrumentalist
- June 8 – Gordon Jacob, composer, 88
- June 15 – Meredith Willson, US songwriter, 82
- June 28 – Mischa Spoliansky, Russian born composer and conductor
- July 14
- Bill Stapleton, jazz trumpeter, 49 (alcohol-related)
- Philippé Wynne, R&B singer, 43
- July 19 – Madeleine Sibille, operatic soprano, 89
- July 25 – Big Mama Thornton, R&B singer, 57
- July 29 – Lorenz Fehenberger, operatic tenor, 71
- July 31 – Paul Le Flem, composer, 103
- August 4 – Babe Russin, saxophonist, 73
- August 5 – Tuts Washington, R&B pianist, 67
- August 12 – Margaret Sutherland, composer, 86
- August 30 – Emil Newman, conductor and composer, 73
- August 31 – Carlo Zecchi, pianist, music teacher and conductor, 81
- September 3
- Dora Labbette, operatic soprano, 86
- Arthur Schwartz, composer and film producer, 83
- September 6 – Ernest Tubb, country & western musician, 70
- September 10
- Herman Sherman, jazz saxophonist and bandleader, 61
- Trummy Young, swing trombonist, 72
- September 15 – Charles Lynch, Irish concert pianist
- September 20 – Steve Goodman, singer/songwriter best known for "City of New Orleans", 36 (leukaemia)
- October – Lina Bruna Rasa, operatic soprano, 67
- October 3 – Harrison Potter, pianist, 93
- October 4 – Carl von Garaguly, violinist and conductor
- October 12 – Jesús Maria Sanromá, pianist, 81
- October 16 – Jiří Jelínek, jazz trumpeter, singer and artist, 62
- October 20 – Budd Johnson, jazz musician, 73
- October 26 – John Woods Duke, composer, 85
- November 8 – Carl Gustav Sparre Olsen, violinist and composer, 81
- November 16 – Leonard Rose, cellist, 66
- November 20 – Alexander Moyzes, Slovak composer, 78
- December 7 – Jon B. Higgins, American Carnatic musician, 45 (road accident)
- December 9 – Razzle (Nicholas Dingley), drummer of Hanoi Rocks, 24 (car accident)
- December 10 – Charlie Teagarden, jazz trumpeter, 71
- December 13 – Max Schönherr, conductor and composer, 81
- December 15 – Jan Peerce, operatic tenor, 80
- December 21 – José Luis Rodríguez Vélez, Panamanian composer, orchestra director, saxophonist, clarinetist and guitarist, 69
Read more about this topic: 1984 In Music
Famous quotes containing the word deaths:
“Death is too much for men to bear, whereas women, who are practiced in bearing the deaths of men before their own and who are also practiced in bearing life, take death almost in stride. They go to meet death—that is, they attempt suicide—twice as often as men, though men are more “successful” because they use surer weapons, like guns.”
—Roger Rosenblatt (b. 1940)
“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)
“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)