Deaths
- January 3 – John Dopyera, stringed instrument maker, 94
- January 13 – Radamés Gnattali, Brazilian composer, 81
- January 15 – Andy Gibb, singer, 30 (myocarditis)
- January 19 – Evgeny Mravinsky, conductor
- February 9 – Kurt Herbert Adler, conductor and opera administrator
- February 14 – Frederick Loewe, composer of musicals, 86
- February 16 – Jean Carignan, fiddler, 71
- February 24 – Memphis Slim, blues musician, 72
- February 27 – Gene de Paul, pianist and composer, 68
- March 6 – Jeanne Aubert, singer and actress
- March 7 – Divine, singer and drag entertainer, 42 (heart failure)
- March 8 – Henryk Szeryng, violinist
- March 10 – William Wordsworth, Scottish composer
- March 12 - Gianna Pederzini, operatic mezzo-soprano, 88
- March 15 – Frank Perkins, American song composer
- March 20 – Gil Evans, Canadian jazz pianist, composer and bandleader
- April 3 – Kai Ewans, Danish jazz musician
- April 7 – Cesar Bresgen, Austrian composer
- April 9
- Brook Benton, 56 (complications of spinal meningitis)
- David Prater, of Sam & Dave, 50 (car accident)
- April 15 – Youri Egorov, Soviet classical pianist, 33 (complications of AIDS)
- April 29 – James McCracken, tenor, 61
- May 1 – Claude Demetrius, songwriter
- May 10 – Ciaran Bourke, folk musician (The Dubliners), 53 (brain damage)
- May 13 – Chet Baker, jazz musician, 58 (head injuries from fall)
- May 21 – Sammy Davis, Sr., vaudeville performer
- May 22 – Dennis Day, US singer
- June 22 – Jesse Ed Davis, guitarist, 43
- June 25 – Hillel Slovak, Red Hot Chili Peppers, guitarist, 26 (speedball overdose)
- July 2 – Eddie Vinson, jazz/blues musician, 70
- July 18
- Joly Braga Santos, Portuguese composer and conductor
- Nico, German singer, 49 (brain haemorrhage)
- July 20 – Richard Holm, German operatic tenor
- August 8 – Félix Leclerc, folk singer
- August 9 – Giacinto Scelsi, composer
- August 14 – Roy Buchanan, American guitarist, 48 (suicide)
- August 22 - Frances James, operatic soprano, 85
- August 24
- Kenneth Leighton, English composer
- Nat Stuckey, American country singer
- August – Tenor Saw, dancehall artist, 22 (road accident)
- September 17 - Hilde Gueden, operatic soprano, 71
- September 23 – Arwel Hughes, composer and conductor
- September 26 – Lord Melody, calypso musician, 62
- October 7 – Billy Daniels, singer, 73
- October 15 – Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji, British Parsi composer, music journalist and pianist
- October 18 – Sir Frederick Ashton, dancer and choreographer
- October 19 – Son House, blues musician
- October 20 – Mogens Wöldike, Danish conductor
- November 13
- Antal Doráti, conductor, 82
- Jaromír Vejvoda, Czech composer, 86
- November 24 – Irmgard Seefried, operatic soprano, 69
- November 26 – Antonio Estévez, composer
- November 30 – Charlie Rouse, saxophonist, 64
- December 2 – Tata Giacobetti, Italian singer and lyricist (Quartetto Cetra)
- December 6 – Roy Orbison, singer, 52 (heart attack)
- December 16 – Sylvester, R&B singer, disco performer, 41 (complications from AIDS)
- December 21 – Paul Avron Jeffreys, Cockney Rebel
- December 25 – Evgeny Golubev, Russian composer
Read more about this topic: 1988 In Music
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)