1991 in Music - Deaths

Deaths

  • 8 January – Steve Clark, guitarist of Def Leppard, 30 (overdose of codeine)
  • 14 January – Chitragupta, film composer, 73
  • 6 February – Danny Thomas, singer and actor, 79
  • 9 February - James Cleveland, gospel singer, 59
  • 13 February – Flaviano Labò, operatic tenor, 64
  • 17 February – Gitta Alpár, operatic soprano, 88
  • 20 February – Isabelle Delorme, pianist, composer and music teacher, 90
  • 21 February – Margot Fonteyn, ballerina, 71
  • 26 February – Slim Gaillard, jazz musician, 75
  • 2 March – Serge Gainsbourg, singer and songwriter, 62 (heart attack)
  • 13 March – Jimmy McPartland, 83, jazz musician
  • 14 March
    • Jerome Doc Pomus, songwriter, 65
    • Howard Ashman, lyricist, 40 (AIDS-related)
  • 15 March – Bud Freeman, jazz musician, 84
  • 18 March – Dezider Kardoš, Slovak composer, 76
  • 21 March – Leo Fender, inventor of the electric guitar, 81
  • 25 March – Eileen Joyce, pianist, 83
  • 1 April – Martha Graham, 96, American dancer and choreographer
  • 4 April – Louis Guglielmi, 75, French composer
  • 7 April
    • Henry Glover, American songwriter, producer and trumpet player, 69
    • Ruth Page, American dancer and choreographer, 92
  • 8 April – Per Yngve Ohlin, aka 'Dead', vocalist of Mayhem, 22 (suicide)
  • 13 April – Wilhelm Lanzky-Otto, horn virtuoso, 82
  • 17 April – Jack Yellen, 98, American lyricist
  • 18 April – Barry Rogers, 55, American jazz and salsa trombonist
  • 20 April – Steve Marriott, singer, songwriter and guitarist (Small Faces and Humble Pie), 44 (killed in house fire)
  • 21 April – Willi Boskovsky, conductor, 81
  • 23 April – Johnny Thunders, rock guitarist and singer, 38 (drug-related)
  • 26 April
    • Leo Arnaud, composer, 86
    • Carmine Coppola, flautist and composer, 80
  • 28 April – Ken Curtis, American singer and actor, 74
  • 29 April – Gonzaguinha, Brazilian singer and composer, 45 (car accident)
  • 3 May – Mohammed Abdel Wahab, Egyptian singer and composer (b. 1907)
  • 8 May
    • Jean Langlais, composer, 84
    • Rudolf Serkin, pianist, 88
  • 9 May? – Yanka Dyagileva, poet and singer, 24 (drowned)
  • 19 May – Odia Coates, singer, 49 (breast cancer)
  • 23 May – Wilhelm Kempff, pianist and composer, 95
  • 24 May
    • Dirk Schoufs, a member of Belgian Band Vaya Con Dios (AIDS-related)
    • Gene Clark, singer-songwriter (The Byrds), 46 (heart attack)
  • 27 May – Leopold Nowak, musicologist, 86
  • 1 June – David Ruffin, singer (The Temptations), 50 (overdose of cocaine)
  • 4 June – MC Trouble, rapper, 20 (epileptic seizure)
  • 6 June – Stan Getz, US saxophonist, 64
  • 9 June – Claudio Arrau, pianist, 88
  • 14 June – Joy Finzi, founder of the Finzi Trust, 84
  • 5 July – Camarón de la Isla, flamenco singer, 41 (lung cancer)
  • 6 July – Herminio Giménez, composer, 86
  • 11 July – Honorata de la Rama, singer, 89
  • 15 July – Bert Convy, American game show host, actor, and singer, 57 (brain tumor)
  • 28 August – Vince Taylor, rock and roll singer, 52 (cancer)
  • 4 September
    • Charlie Barnet, US bandleader, 77
    • Dottie West, American country singer, 58 (car accident)
  • 8 September – Alex North, composer, 80
  • 17 September
    • Zino Francescatti, violinist, 89
    • Rob Tyner, lead singer of MC5, 46 (heart attack)
  • 25 September – Sydney MacEwan, singer of traditional Scottish and Irish songs, 82
  • 28 September
    • Miles Davis, jazz trumpeter and composer, 65 (stroke)
    • Eugène Bozza, composer, 86
  • 6 October – Igor Talkov, Russian singer/songwriter, 34 (murdered)
  • 9 October – Roy Black, 48, singer and actor (heart failure)
  • 16 October – Ole Beich, guitarist and bassist, 36 (drowned)
  • 17 October – Tennessee Ernie Ford, country musician, 72
  • 25 October - Bill Graham, rock concert promoter, 60 (helicopter crash)
  • 27 October – Sir Andrzej Panufnik, Polish composer, 75
  • 31 October – Joseph Papp, Broadway producer, 70
  • 2 November – Mort Shuman, songwriter, 54 (complications following a liver operation)
  • 3 November – Chris Bender, R&B singer, 19 (murdered)
  • 8 November – Frances Faye, singer, 79
  • 11 November – Morton Stevens, film composer, 62
  • 15 November – Jacques Morali, disco composer, 44 (AIDS)
  • 24 November
    • Freddie Mercury, singer, 45 (AIDS)
    • Eric Carr, drummer, 41 (cancer)
  • 10 December - Headman Shabalala, member of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, 46 (shot)
  • 13 December – Stuart Challender, conductor, 44 (AIDS-related)
  • 22 December – Édouard Woolley, tenor, actor, composer and music educator
  • date unknown
    • Tom Anderson, Shetland fiddler
    • Garvin Bushell, multi-instrumentalist
    • M. Ranga Rao, Indian film composer and music director

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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.”
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