1985 in Music - Deaths

Deaths

  • January 3 – Lucien Cailliet, clarinetist, conductor, arranger and composer, 87
  • January 4 – Lovro von Matačić, Croatian conductor, 85
  • January 10 – Anton Karas, Austrian zither player and composer, 78
  • January 25 – Paul J. Smith, composer, 78
  • February 7 – Matt Monro, English singer, 54 (liver cancer)
  • February 11 – Heinz Eric Roemheld, American composer, 83
  • February 12 – Leslie Sarony, English singer, comedian and songwriter, 87
  • February 18
    • Willy Alberti, Dutch singer, 58 (liver cancer)
    • Gábor Darvas, composer and musicologist, 74
  • February 22 – Efrem Zimbalist, violinist, 94
  • February 28 – David Byron, vocalist of Uriah Heep, 38 (alcohol-related)
  • March 1 – Eugene List, American classical pianist, 66
  • March 16 – Roger Sessions, American composer, 88
  • March 23 – Zoot Sims, jazz saxophonist, 59
  • March 31 – Jeanine Deckers, known as The Singing Nun, 51 (suicide)
  • May 2 – Bridget D'Oyly Carte, opera impresario, 77
  • May 8 – Karl Marx, composer and conductor, 87
  • May 19 – Hilding Rosenberg, composer, 92
  • June – Leonard Falcone, baritone/eupohonium virtuosos and director of bands at Michigan State, 86
  • July 23 – Kay Kyser, US bandleader, 80
  • July 30 – Peter Knight, conductor, arranger and composer, 68
  • August 11 – Nick Ceroli, jazz drummer, 45
  • August 24 – Paul Creston, American composer, 78
  • September 6 – Little Brother Montgomery, jazz and blues pianist and singer, 79
  • September 8 – Frederick May, Irish composer, 74
  • September 11 – William Alwyn, English composer, 79
  • September 18 – Ed Lewis, jazz trumpeter, 76
  • October 6 – Nelson Riddle, US conductor, composer and arranger
  • October 11 – Tex Williams, US country singer, 68
  • October 12 - Ricky Wilson, guitarist (The B-52's), 32
  • October 14 – Emil Gilels, pianist, 68
  • October 18 – Stefan Askenase, pianist, 94
  • October 20 – Boris Lisanevich, dancer, 80
  • October 22 – Viorica Ursuleac, operatic soprano, 91
  • November 15 – Seán Ryan, Irish fiddler and whistler
  • November 24 - Big Joe Turner, blues singer, 74
  • December 12 – Ian Stewart (The Rolling Stones), 42 (heart attack)
  • December 22 – D. Boon, lead singer of Minutemen, 27 (car accident)
  • December 31 – Ricky Nelson, singer, former teen idol, 45 (plane crash)
  • date unknown – Rodolfo Arizaga, Argentinian composer

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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)

    “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)