Do you know the famous people we lost at the start of this year – 2023, The suggestion is to click this link to check the acting stars we will miss so much from the bottom of our hearts after you see the list below:
- David Crosby
- Arthur Duncan
- Jonathan Raban
- Mary Kaye Richter
- Yukihiro Takahashi
1. David Crosby
- David Van Cortlandt Crosby was a singer, guitarist, and songwriter from the United States. He was a founding member of the Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash in addition to his solo career. In 1964, Crosby joined the Byrds.
- In April 1965, they achieved their first top-ten success with a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man.”
- On Thursday, David Crosby’s widow told Variety that he had died at 81.
- The veteran musician co-founded The Byrds and Crosby and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
- “His legendary music will live on,” his wife told Variety. “Peace, love, and harmony to those who knew and touched David. He’ll be missed. We respectfully request privacy while grieving our tremendous loss. Thank you.”
- In 1941, Floyd Crosby, an Oscar-winning cinematographer, and Aliph Van Cortlandt Whitehead, a Macy’s department store salesperson, had a son named Crosby in Los Angeles, California.
- “Mr. Tambourine Man” was Byrds’ first success when he joined in 1964. After Neil Young joined, Crosby, Stills & Nash released “Marrakesh Express,” “Just a Song Before I Go,” and “Woodstock.”
- In 1985, Crosby was sentenced to nine months in a Texas state prison for drug use.
- “I have no idea how I’m alive and Jimi [Hendrix] isn’t and Janis [Joplin] isn’t and all my other buddies,” he told Rolling Stone in 2014, years after he’d cleaned up. “Why me? I got lucky.”
- After that, Crosby made songs and toured for another 30 years, solidifying his status as a 20th-century legend. Touring ended in May 2022.
- he told Best Classic Bands. “I’m weak and exhausted.”
- The Byrds were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, and Crosby, Stills & Nash followed six years later.
Jan Dance, Django, James Raymond, Erika, and Donovan are his survivors.
2. Arthur Duncan
| Born: | 1925, Pasadena, CA |
| Died: | January 2023, Moreno Valley, CA |
| Spouse: | Donna Duncan |
| Siblings: | Timothy Duncan, Mike Duncan, John David Duncan |
- Arthur Duncan, who pioneered Black entertainment and kept tap dance alive on television, died at 97.
- Duncan was most known for his 18-year stint as the lone Black cast member on “The Lawrence Welk Show,” a major television variety show pioneer. He appeared in films, television, and major theaters worldwide.
- Duncan died in Moreno Valley on January 4. His stroke and pneumonia-related death were reported several days later.
- Duncan’s masterful tap dancing on the Welk show from 1964 until 1982 was important. Tap greats remained, but employment had disappeared.
- Duncan refined his abilities while big bands—which commonly hired tappers—made way for rock bands, and jazz players—who often created their rhythmic ideas alongside hoofers—moved to smaller venues and more experimental musical styles for which tap dancers were not needed. Tap was no longer a street, concert, or Broadway dance.
- “During the 1960s, there were only two shows on television where you could see tap dancing every week: Friday on ‘The Mickey Mouse Club’ for Talent Round-Up Day, and Sundays with Arthur Duncan with a highlighted dance on ‘The Lawrence Welk Show,’” said dance historian Rusty Frank, author of “Tap! “Before digital recorders, streaming TV, and YouTube, you had to sit in front of the television at the particular airing time to see tap dancing.”
- Author and dance critic Brian Seibert said that “when Welk introduced Duncan as ‘the young man who is keeping tap dancing alive,’ the term was founded in fact.”
- Duncan “usually followed a basic recipe of excellent rhythm and huge finishes, yet the variety of steps was astonishing,” Seibert noted in “What the Eye Hears,” the most definitive tap history.
- Duncan copied the Nicholas Brothers’ and John Bubbles’ piano-top dance in one number. Duncan’s edge-to-edge slips certainly frightened the pianist.
- Duncan appeared on “The Betty White Show” in 1954 before joining Welk. White—who later starred in “The Golden Girls”—refused Southern affiliates’ demands to remove Duncan from her show.
- Ralna English, a Welk dancer, and longstanding lead singer said, “There were audience members who were not delighted to have a Black person on the show,” which toured the country. “I know. I heard. Some older individuals were very prejudiced.”
Duncan ignored racism.
3. Jonathan Raban
| Born: | 1942, Hempton, United Kingdom |
| Died: | January 17, 2023, Seattle, WA |
| Education: | University of Hull |
| Nationality: | British |
| Partner: | Caroline Cuthbert (1985–) |
| Children: | Julia Raban |
According to his agent, British travel writer, critic, and novelist Jonathan Raban, 80, has died.
- Raban, the son of an Anglican preacher, was born in Norfolk in 1942. The family had “upper-middle-class connections: coat-of-arms, one-time country house” but little money. “We belonged nowhere,” he wrote in Coasting in 1986. We possessed the money of one lot, the voices of another, and an ethereal goodness that erased us from the social map.”
- Raban, who died in Seattle on Tuesday, studied at the University of Hull and East Anglia, where he became friends with Philip Larkin. He spent his vacations writing fiction and journalism and traveled to London in 1969 to become a freelance writer, staying with US poet Robert Lowell. Raban was impressed by Lowell’s “putting the agony of his life into art” and became friends.
- He traveled and wrote about everything. He traveled across the Middle East in Arabia: Through the Looking Glass (1979); down the Mississippi River in Old Glory (1981); around the British Isles by boat in Coasting (1986); and across the Atlantic aboard a container ship in Hunting Mister Heartbreak (1989). (1991). In Bad Land: An American Romance, Raban examined southeast Montana’s history (1996).
- Passage to Juneau, his 1999 novel about sailing Alaska’s Inside Passage, became an exploration of mortality and fatherhood after his father’s death and divorce.
- The writer’s biggest consolation, I think. He told the Guardian in 2006 that calamities are gifts. “Your father dies and your wife leaves you in two months. I thought, “God, this is good for the book.”
- Raban won awards for his combination of personal difficulties, incisive assessments of people he encountered, and exquisite passages about places and seas. “A sort of English Capote: colorful, witty, accurate, full of hyperbolic humor and obscene metaphor; no shyness at all,” the New York Times said. The author’s ability to instantly connect with almost anyone is just as vital.
- His colorful and often caustic accounts of the people he met, befriended, and sometimes romanced on his excursions offended others. How do you report life as a sequence of great people? Raban responded to an aggrieved reviewer in the Washington Post. Disgusting individuals exist. Lovable.”
4. Mary Kaye Richter
- Weakness fills our hearts. On November 24, Mary K. Richter, the matriarch of our National Foundation for Ectodermal Dysplasias (NFED) family, passed away from cancer. We recognize that you are all in disbelief over this. We use this opportunity to honor this great woman in our deep sorrow.
- As part of our 40th Anniversary celebration earlier this year, we spoke with Mary Kaye and Charley. She recalled the early years and the founding of the Foundation (read more about that here).
5. Yukihiro Takahashi
| Born: | 1952, Tokyo, Japan |
| Died: | January 11, 2023, Japan |
| Spouse: | Kiyomi Takahashi |
| Music groups: | Yellow Magic Orchestra (1978 – 1984), Metafile |
- The Japan Times reports that Yellow Magic Orchestra co-founder Yukihiro Takahashi died. Takahashi had brain tumor surgery in August 2020. Next year, he reported more health issues.
- According to Sports Nippon, Takahashi contracted pneumonia in early January which worsened while recovering at home in Karzuizawa, Nagano Prefecture. 70-year-old Takahashi.
- Yukihiro Takahashi, born June 6, 1952, was influenced by his older brother Nobuyuki to play music. Junior high gatherings with college musicians taught him to drum. By 16, Takahashi was recording drum parts for TV advertisements and playing in other bands.
- Takahashi became famous in Japan in the 1970s as a Sadistic Mika Band drummer. As a drummer, US dance music had “a tremendous influence,” and he gravitated toward pop, soul, and Motown.
- After the group disbanded, Takahashi hired Ryuichi Sakamoto to record Saravah!, his 1977 French pop-inspired solo album. Haruomi Hosono engaged the two artists to record Paraiso, credited to Harry Hosono and the Yellow Magic Band, the same year. The trio established the Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1978.
- After forming in 1978, Yellow Magic Orchestra released their self-titled album. The band’s unusual usage of computer technologies, synths, and video game samples garnered national and worldwide attention.
- Yellow Magic Orchestra, which sold over 250,000 copies in Japan, entered the Billboard 200 and Billboard R&B Albums charts, and had a top 20 UK success with “Computer Game / Firecracker,” is regarded as a synth-pop pioneer.
- Solid State Survivor followed Yellow Magic Orchestra’s 1979 breakthrough. During their first stint, the band released seven albums: 1980’s × and Multiplies, 1981’s BGM and Technodelic, and 1983’s Naughty Boys and Service.
- After reuniting in 1992, Yellow Magic Orchestra wrote and recorded Technodon, their 1993 comeback album, under a different name due to label concerns. It was the first of several records under YMO (crossed out by a giant “x”), Human Audio Sponge, and HASYMO.
A Content publisher who likes to publish and write articles on popular celebrities. Covers the famous people passing away news. He has hobbies of writing content, skiing, and listening to music.
