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Happenings — what’s coming up in Northeast Ohio

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Here is a brief rundown of some coming entertainment options in Northeast Ohio. Make submissions for consideration via email to entertainment@morningjournal.com or entertainment@news-herald.com. You must include a phone number and/or web address for publication.

Art

Beck Center for the Arts: 17801 Detroit Ave., Lakewood, presents “Faculty Visual Arts Exhibition,” through Aug. 13 (reception 6 to 7:30 p.m. July 28). Call 216-521-2540, or visit beckcenter.org.

Cleveland Museum of Art: 11150 East Blvd., presents “The Medieval Top Seller: The Book of Hours,” through July 30; “When Salt Was Gold: Yangzhou, City of Riches and Art,” through Nov. 5; “Tilman Riemenschneider’s Saint Jerome and Late Medieval Alabaster Sculpture,” through July 23; “Egyptomania: Fashion’s Conflicted Obsession,” through Jan. 28; “A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur,” June 11 through Sept. 10. Call 216-421-7340 or visit clevelandart.org.

Ken Long: presents a solo exhibition of his work, through June 30 at the Rocky River Nature Center, 24000 Valley Parkway, North Olmsted. Call 440-666-1363 or email k_d_long@hotmail.com.

Kent State University Museum: 515 Hilltop Drive, Kent, presents “Head to Toe,” a trilogy of exhibitions that draws from the Kent State University Museum’s permanent collection, through July 23. Call 330-672-3450 or visit kent.edu/museum.

Lake Erie College’s B.K. Smith Gallery: in Royce Hall for the Fine and Performing Arts, Gillett Street, Painesville, presents “Paul Tikkanen: A Retrospective,” featuring the work of the artist in a variety of styles and media, June 8 through Aug. 1 (reception with refreshments, live music and Tikkanen expert, 6:30 to 8 p.m. June 8). Call 440-375-7050 or visit LEC.edu.

Lakeland Community College’s Gallery at Lakeland: 7700 Clocktower Drive, Kirtland, presents the 13th “May Show at Lakeland Juried Art Exhibition,” featuring 78 artworks created by 67 artists, through July 14. Call 440-525-7029 or visit lakelandcc.edu/gallery.

Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Cleveland: 11400 Euclid Ave., presents Nina Chanel Abney: “Big Butch Synergy,” Sam Falls: “We Are Dust and Shadow” and Amber N. Ford: “Someone, Somewhere, Something,” through June 11. Call 216-421-8671 or visit mocacleveland.org.

Penitentiary Glen Reservation: 8668 Kirtland-Chardon Road, Kirtland, presents 36th annual “Amateur Photo Contest & Show,” June 10 through Aug. 6. Call 440-256-1404 or visit lakemetroparks.com/parks-trails/penitentiary-glen-reservation.

Valley Art Center: 155 Bell St., Chagrin Falls, presents 39th Art by the Falls festival, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. June 10 and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. June 11 at Riverside Park in Chagrin Falls. Call 440-247-7507 or visit valleyartcenter.org.

Children’s entertainment

Playhouse Square: 1501 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, presents Blippi: The Wonderful World Tour, June 8. Call 216-241-6000 or visit PlayhouseSquare.org.

Wolstein Center: 2000 Prospect Ave., presents “Monster High Live,” Oct. 13 through 15. Call 877-468-4946 or visit wolsteincenter.com.

Comedy

Agora Theatre & Ballroom: 5000 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, presents Desi Banks, Sept. 22; Stavros Halkias, Oct. 7; Chris D’Elia, Oct. 20. Visit AgoraCleveland.com.

Cleveland Improv: 1148 Main Ave., Cleveland, presents John Morgan, June 2 and 3; Bruce Bruce, June 9 through 11; Jimmy Shin, June 14; Faizon Love, June 16 through 18; DeRay Davis, June 23 through 25. Call 216-696-4677 or visit ClevelandImprov.com.

French Creek Theatre: Pijor Hall, located within the French Creek Nature & Arts Center, Sheffield Village, presents improv troupe Something Dada, 7:30 p.m. June 9. Call 440-949-5200, ext. 221 or visit metroparks.cc/theatre.php.

Hilarities 4th Street Theatre: 2025 E. Fourth St., Cleveland, presents Brooks Wheelan, June 2 through 4; Nick Mullen, June 8 through 10; Frank Caliendo, June 21; Christopher Titus, Aug. 11 and 12; Russell Howard, Oct. 22; Matt Rife, Nov. 10 through 12. Call 216-736-4242 or visit pickwickandfrolic.com.

MGM Northfield Park: 10777 Northfield Road, Northfield, presents The Bald Brothers, Aug. 25; Lewis Black, Oct. 20; Corey Holcomb, Nov. 3. Call 330-908-7625 or visit mgmnorthfieldpark.mgmresorts.com.

Playhouse Square: 1501 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, presents Chelsea Handler, Oct. 20. Call 216-241-6000 or visit PlayhouseSquare.org.

Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse: 1 Center Court, Cleveland, presents Impractical Jokers, June 3. Call 888-894-9422 or visit rocketmortgagefieldhouse.com.

Dance

Akron Civic Theatre: 182 S. Main St., presents “Derek Hough: Symphony of Dance,” Nov. 3. Visit AkronCivic.com.

Cleveland Ballet: presents Sept. 22 and 23 at Playhouse Square’s Connor Palace; “The Nutcracker,” Dec. 14 though Dec. 23 at Playhouse Square’s Connor Palace; “Aurora: A Sleeping Beauty Story,” April 26 and 27 at Playhouse Square’s Connor Palace. Visit Clevelandballet.com.

Dancing Wheels: 3030 Euclid Ave. #100, Cleveland, presents “Legendary Ladies of Jazz!,” choreographed to “the dynamic work of women of color who revolutionized the 1920’s-1950’s jazz era and changed the tenor and tone of the genre paving the way for female vocal and musical artists throughout history,” 8 p.m. June 16 at Playhouse Square’s Allen Theatre. Call 216-432-0306 or visit dancingwheels.org.

Film

Cleveland Cinemas: presents a 50th-anniversary screening of 1973’s “Jesus Christ Superstar” with guest Ted Neeley, 7 p.m. June 29. Visit ClevelandCinemas.com.

Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque: 11610 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, presents “Hilma,” (Sweden, 2022, Lasse Hallström), 7 p.m. June 2 and 6:45 p.m. June 3; “The Doom Generation,” (USA, 1995, Gregg Araki), 8:20 p.m. and 9:05 p.m. June 3; “The Story of a Cheat” (aka “Confessions of a Cheat,” “Le Roman D’un Tricheur,” France, 1936, Sacha Guitry), 5 p.m. June 3; “The Eight Mountains (“Le Otto Montagne,” Italy/Belgium/France/UK, 2022, Felix van Groeningen, Charlotte Vandermeersch), 3:30 p.m. June 4; “The Living Sea” (USA, 1995, Greg MacGillivray) and “Everest” (USA, 1998, David Breashears, Stephen Judson, Greg MacGillivray), 6:30 p.m. June 4; “Tori and Lokita” (“Tori Et Lokita,” Belgium/France, 2022, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne), 8:15 p.m. June 4; “Blaze” (Australia, 2022, Del Kathryn Barton), 7 p.m. June 7. Call 216-421-7450 or visit CIA.edu/Cinematheque.

Music

Agora Theatre & Ballroom: 5000 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, presents Death Cab for Cutie, June 4; The Flaming Lips, June 11; Fleet Floxes, June 13; Jinkx Monsoon, July 8; The Smile, July 11; Le Tigre, July 17; Declan McKenna, July 21; JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown, July 29; Death Grips, Aug. 2; Gojira, Mastodon, Lorna Shore, Aug. 8; Dark Star Orchestra, Aug. 11; Babymetal, Dethklok, Sept. 6; Tash Sultana, Sept. 10; Flogging Molly, Sept. 15; The Mars Volta, Sept. 16; Roya Blood, Sept. 19; Warren Zeiders, Sept. 21; Ashnikko, Sept. 23; Explosions in the Sky, Sept. 28; The Midnight, Oct. 2; Larry Fleet, Oct. 21; Mushroomhead — 30th-anniversary Halloween show, Oct. 28. Visit AgoraCleveland.com.

Akron Civic Theatre: 182 S. Main St., presents Ryan Humbert & Emily Bates, July 28; Straight No Chaser, Dec. 14. Visit AkronCivic.com.

Apollo’s Fire, The Cleveland Baroque Orchestra: presents 2023 Summer Countryside Concerts: “The Fiddlers of Dublin,” 7:30 p.m. June 8 at Avon Lake United Church of Christ | 7:30 p.m. June 9, 4 and7:30 p.m. June 10 and 7 p.m. June 11 at Holden Arboretum in Kirtland | 7:30 p.m. June 12 at the Bath Church (UCC) | 7:30 p.m. June 13 at Mapleside Farms in Brunswick. Call 216-320-0012 or 800-314-2535, or visit apollosfire.org.

Bash on the Bay: a music fest in Put-in-Bay featuring Pitpull, Luke Bryan, Elle King, Brothers Osborne and more, will be Aug. 23 and 24. Visit bashonthebay.com.

American rock act Legendary Shack Shakers is set to play June 2 at Cleveland's Beachland Ballroom. Dexter Remweber also are on the bill. Details: BeachlandBallroom.com. (Courtesy of the Beachland Ballroom)
American rock act Legendary Shack Shakers is set to play June 2 at Cleveland’s Beachland Ballroom. Dexter Remweber also are on the bill. Details: BeachlandBallroom.com. (Courtesy of the Beachland Ballroom)

Beachland Ballroom: 15711 Waterloo Road, Cleveland, presents Start Making Sense (Talking Heads tribute), June 2; Legendary Shack Shakers, Dexter Remweber, Viva Le Vox, June 2; Panchiko, Horse Jumper of Love, LSD, June 3; Televisionaries, Radio Dummies, Jack McLaughlin & the Optimists, June 3; Caitlin Rose and Andrew Combs, June 4; Autopilot, June 5; Bad Cop / Bad Cop, The Last Gang, June 6; Chayla Hope, The Ghost Club, Kyle Mahlik, June 9; Joshua Hedley, Lauren Morrow June 9; Olde Wrestling “Returns,” June 10; WAVVES, Cloud Nothings, Wavves, Ultra Q, June 11; Integrity, The Acacia Strain, Tribal Gaze, June 13; An Evening With Jason Ricci, June 13; Josh Meloy, June 15; This Summer, Mr. Princess, Rusted Hearts, June 16; Joseph Huber, June 16; Bonny Doon, June 17; The Family Crest, July 17; Possessed by Paul James, June 18; The 40 Acre Mule, June 20; Deer Tick, Country Westerns, June 21; The Hi-Jivers, June 22; Melted Strawberry, Higher Vibration, Mellowman Funk, June 23; Victoria Victoria featuring Charlie Hunter, June 25; PRINS, Jace Martin, June 26; Jungle Brothers, June 29; Blossom Park, Clementine, June 30: black midi, July 1; The Iron Maidens, Olathia, July 6; Into The Blue: Grateful Dead Revival, July 7; Arcy Drive, July 7; Ballyhoo!, July 12; Altin Gun, July 13; The Plate Scrapers, July 14; The Bellrays, July 16; Imarhan, July 17; The Family Crest, July 17; Braid, July 18; Destroy Boys, July 19; Dead Tooth, Dino Gala, Honey Pocket, July 19; Clare Maloney & The Great Adventure, Taylor Lamborn, July 20; John R. Miller, July 21; Matt Watson, Ben Beal, July 24; Reverend Horton Heat, The Delta Bombers, July 25; Kid Koala, July 26; The Wildlife, July 28; Blue Lunch, Billy Price, July 28; Barely Dead, Aug. 1; The Rumble featuring Chief Joseph Boudreaux Jr., Aug. 3; Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys, Aug. 4; The Beths, Aug. 5; Rachel Brooke, Aug. 8; 12th Annual International Ohio Burlesque Festival 2023, Aug. 10; Oneida, Wrong Places, Aug. 12; American Football, Aug. 14; Robbie Fulks, The Shootouts (acoustic trio), Aug. 20; an evening with The Baseball Project, featuring Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey, Mike Mills, Linda Pitmon, and Steve Wynn, Aug. 24; Messer Chups, Ichi Bons, Aug. 25; Dry Reef, Aug. 25; Drifting Roots, Lake Irie, Aug. 30; Clem Snide, Sept. 15; OSEES, Sept. 17; Black Joe Lewis, Sept. 21; DEVOtional 2023, Sept. 22 and 23; Fortunate Youth, Dubbest, Sept. 28; Boy Pablo, Oct. 4; mssv, Oct. 7; Cam Cole, Oct. 8; Kings Kaleidoscope, Mike Mains & The Branches, Oct. 25. Call 216-383-1124 or visit beachlandballroom.com.

Blossom Music Center: 1145 W. Steels Corners Road, Cuyahoga Falls, presents Dierks Bentley, Jordan Davis, Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, June 3; The Cure, The Twilight Sad, June 11; Weezer, Modest Mouse, Momma, June 16; The Used, Pierce the Veil, Don Broco, June 17; Eric Church, Ashley McBryde, The Red Clay Strays, June 24; Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, JD McPherson, June 28; Shania Twain, June 30; Yellowcard, Mayday Parade, Story of the Year, July 12; Big Time Rush, Jax & Max, July 17; Fall Out Boy, Bring Me the Horizon, Royal & the Serpent, July 18; Jason Aldean, Mitchell Tenpenny, Corry Kent, July 20; Barenaked Ladies, Five for Fighting, Del Amitri, July 21; Foreigner, Loverboy, July 24; Mudvayne, Coal Chamber, Gwar, Aug. 4; 50 Cent, Busta Rhymes, Jeremih, Aug. 6; Nickelback, Brantley Gilbert, Josh Ross, Aug. 9; Lil Durk, Kodak Black, Nile Choppa, Aug. 16; Pentatonix, Lauren Alaina, Aug. 17; Goo Goo Dolls, O.A.R., Aug. 20; 5 Seconds of Summer, Aug. 25; Disturbed, Breaking Benjamin and Jinjer, Aug. 27; Shinedown, Papa Roach, Spiritbox, Sept. 6; Duran Duran, Bastille, Nile Rodgers & Chic, Sept. 10; Brandi Carlile, Katie Pruitt, Sept. 16; Jelly Roll, Struggle Jennings, Josh Adam Meyers, Sept. 30. Call 330-920-8040 or visit livemu.sc/2QcbKUb.

Blossom Music Festival: at Blossom Music Center, the summer home of The Cleveland Orchestra, presents “Beethoven’s Ode to Joy,” featuring The Cleveland Orchestra performing music by Beethoven and Wagner, 8 p.m. July 1; “Salute to America,” featuring the Blossom Festival Band performing patriotic marches, Broadway favorites and more, along with fireworks, 8 p.m. July 2 through 4; “Movie Night Live: ‘Jurassic Park,’” featuring The Cleveland Orchestra performing the score by John Williams along to the movie, 7 p.m. July 7 through 9; “Romantic Rachmaninoff,” featuring The Cleveland Orchestra performing music by Rachmaninoff, 7 p.m. July 15; “She’s Got Soul,” featuring The Cleveland Orchestra performing “a wide-ranging revue of R&B classics,” 7 p.m. July 16; “La Mer,” featuring The Cleveland Orchestra performing music by Akutagawa, Shostakovich and Debussy, 7 p.m. July 22; “Two Pianos: Who Could Ask for Anything More,” featuring The Cleveland Orchestra with Jean-Yves Thibaudet (piano) Michael Feinstein (piano and vocals) performing music from Gershwin and more, 7 p.m. July 23; “Movie Night Live: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,” featuring The Cleveland Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra Children’s Chorus performing Howard Shore’s score along to the movie, 7 p.m. July 28 through 30; “Sibelius’s First Symphony,” featuring the Kent Blossom Chamber Orchestra performing the music of Snider, Adams and Sibelius, 7 p.m. Aug. 5; “Mozart in the Meadows,” featuring The Cleveland Orchestra performing music by Mozart, Langer and Mendelssohn, 7 p.m. Aug. 12; “An Evening with Audra McDonald,” featuring The Cleveland Orchestra with vocalist McDonald performing an evening of Broadway favorites and songs from her latest album, “Sing Happy,” 7 p.m. Aug. 13; “Fujita Plays Tchaikovsky,” featuring The Cleveland Orchestra with Mao Fujita (piano), performing music by Shaw, Dawson and Tchaikovsky, 7 p.m. Aug. 19; “Impressions of France and Spain,” featuring The Cleveland Orchestra performing music by Ravel, Saint-Saëns and De Falla, 7 p.m. Aug. 26; “Movie Night Live: Disney: The Sound of Magic,” featuring The Cleveland Orchestra performing 100 years of Disney music, 7 p.m. Sept. 1 through 3; “Distant Worlds: Music From FINAL FANTASY,” featuring The Blossom Festival Orchestra and Cleveland Orchestra Chamber Chorus performing music from the video game series, 7 p.m. Sept. 9. Call 216-231-1111 or visit clevelandorchestra.com.

Covelli Centre: 229 E. French St., Youngstown, presents Hardy, Lainey Wilson, Dylan Marleowe, Sept. 16. Call 800-745-3000 or visit covellicentre.com.

Firelands Symphony Orchestra: presents Olympic Jazz Quintet, 4 p.m. June 11 at McBride Arboretum at BGSU Firelands: Parking Lots D & F (Off of Boos Road); Samba da Cidade Percussion Ensemble, 4 p.m. June 25 at McBride Arboretum at BGSU Firelands: Parking Lots D & F (Off of Boos Road); Cleveland Wind and Friends, 4 p.m. July 9 McBride Arboretum at BGSU Firelands: Parking Lots D & F (Off of Boos Road); FSO Chorale Showcase, 4 p.m. July 16 at McBride Arboretum at BGSU Firelands: Parking Lots D & F (Off of Boos Road); High Frequency Flute Quartet, 6 p.m. July 20 at Ritter Library, Vermilion Third Thursday; Firelands String Quartet, 4 p.m. July 23 at McBride Arboretum at BGSU Firelands: Parking Lots D & F (Off of Boos Road); Firelands Brass Quintet, 6 p.m. July 28 at Meals on Madison/Riverfront Live, downtown Port Clinton; Summer Pops Orchestra Concert, featuring vocalist Laura Peterson, 7 p.m. Aug. 6 at McBride Arboretum at BGSU Firelands: Parking Lots D & F (Off of Boos Road). Call 419-621-4800 or visit FirelandsSymphony.com.

Frankie Scinta’s “The Showman”: will be at 8 p.m. June 17 at House Three Thirty, 532 W. Market St., Akron. Visit bit.ly/FrankieScinta2023.

Goodyear Theater: 1201 E. Market St., Akron, presents Grand Funk Railroad, June 2; The Gipsy Kings featuring Nicolas Reyes. Oct. 1; A.J Croce (“Croce Plays Croce”), Nov. 11. Call 330-690-2307 or visit goodyeartheater.com.

Grog Shop: 2785 Euclid Heights Blvd., Cleveland Heights, presents Tobyraps, .wavrunner, Recess, June 2; GlamGore: fifth annual Pre-Pride on the Eastside, June 3; Unc D, LoConti, Billy Carrick, June 4; Midnight Rental’s Secret Movie Night, June 5; On Paper, Cellar Dwellar, The Little Dummies, June 6; Fig, Heavy Forgiveness, Wes Meadows, June 7; Window Weather, Lake Phily, June 8; Glow 17 featuring Westside Tony & Rosello, Danasaf, June 9; Sparta, Geoff Rickly, Zeta, June 10; THICK, TVOD, Xanny Stars, June 15; Jesse Malin, June 16; Chuchito Valdes Trio, June 17; P—— Jeans, Killyn LUnsford, Woodstock ‘99, June 18; Starbenders, The Haunt June 19; CupcakKe, Solon, HIM HUN, June 21 (rescheduled from April 26); CupcakKe, Namejai, DJ Navy, June 22 (rescheduled from April 28); Bedlocked, Downward, Unrecovery, June 25; Conway the Machine, June 27; Feeble Little Horse, June 29; Sugar: Nu-Metal Party, July 8; The Queers, July 11; Grumpy Plumb, Who Saved Who, Tall Grass; July 15; Julia Jacklin, July 17; The Soul Rebels, July 21; Nick Hakim, July 22; Dive Boms, DRIXY, The Skies Above Us, July 27; School of Rock All Stars,Cleveland School of Rock House Band, Aug. 5; Hobo Johnson, Aug. 13; AJJ, Open Mike Eagle, Foot Ox, Aug. 18; Fake Names, Sept. 16; Sweeping Promises, Aug. 16; Murder by Death, Sept. 5; Local Natives, Sept. 9; Mustard Plug, Toasters, Half Past Two, Sept. 10; The Milk Carton Kids, Sept. 15; IDK, Sept. 27; Margaret Glaspy, Oct. 3; Low Cut Connie, Oct. 11; Nation of Language, Oct. 14; Bob Mould (solo electric), Jason Narducy, Oct. 20; Gilla Band, Oct. 23; Mudhoney, Oct. 24. Call 216-321-5588 or visit grogshop.gs.

House of Blues: 308 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, presents $NOT, Night Lovel, DC The Don, June 8; Smells Like Nirvana, Grunge DNA, June 9; Big Wreck, June 14; K-Hole — A DJ Dance Party hoted by Kim Chi + Plastique Tiara, June 16; Jesse & Joy, June 24; X, July 5; We Are the Union, Catbite, Kill Lincoln, July 5; The Taylor Party – Taylor Swift Night (Eras Version), July 7; Candlebox, MONA, July 9; Less Than Jake, Voodoo Glow Skulls, The Pink Spiders, July 11; Jenny Lewis, July 13; Red Wanting Blue, July 14; The Steel Woods, July 15; Dexter and the Moonrocks, June 16; Des Rocks, July 22; Rema, Vicony, July 23; Bayside, I Am the Avalanche, Koyo, July 25; Chris Kirkpatrick of *NSYNCH, O-Town, BBMak, July 27; Gorgol Bordello, July 29; Gaelic Storm, Aug. 3; Baylen Levine, Aug. 6; Mickey Avalon, Aug. 12; Back to the Top, Aug. 25; Sorry Papi Tour – The All Girl Party, Aug. 26; Corey Taylor, WARGASM, Oxymorrons, Sept. 7; Hulvey, Sept. 7; Local Natives, HalfNOise, Sept. 9; Everclear, The Ataris, Sept. 11; Poppy, PVRIS, Pom Pom Suad, Sept. 14; Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors, Sept. 15; Here Come the Mummies, Perpetual Groove, Sept. 16; The Gaslight Anthem, Sept. 19; Nothing But Thieves, Kid Kapichi, Sept. 22; Dean Lewis, Sara Kays, Sept. 23; Jake Miller, Sept. 24; Sammy Rae & The Friends, Sept. 26; Chris Renzema, Jess Ray, Oct. 3; Wheeler Walker J., Oct. 6; Jean Dawson, Oct. 11; Stephen Sanchez, Oct. 15; TV Girl, Oct. 17; Ekoostik Hookah, Nov. 24; NEFFEX, Nov. 28 and 30. Visit houseofblues.com/Cleveland.

Jacobs Pavilion: Nautica Entertainment Complex, West Bank of the Flats, Cleveland, presents Rainbow Kitten Surprise June 6; Cody Jinks, June 9; Two Friends, June 12; Billy Strings, June 13 and 14; Jacob Collier, June 15; Illenium, June 20; Young the Giant, Milky Chance, Talk, June 21; Noah Kahan, June 22; Rebelution, Iration, July 2; Bryson Tiller, July 3; Melanie Martinez, July 5; Dreamsonic 2023 with Dream Theater, Devin Townsend, Animals as Leaders, July 8; Dirty Heads, Lupe Fiasco, G. Love & Special Sauce, Tropidelic, July 10; Yungblud, The Regrettes, July 11; Orville Peck, July 26; Cavetown, Aug. 1; The Revivalists, Band of Horses, The Heavy Heavy, Aug. 6; Alter Bridge, Sevendust, Mammoth WVH, Aug. 8; The Beach Boys, Aug. 9; CAKE, Sept. 16; Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Sept. 19; Parkway Drive, Sept. 22. Visit bit.ly/axs-jacobs.

Kent Stage: 175 E. Main St., Kent, presents The Lettermen, June 3; Jethro Tull’s Martin Barre with Dan Crisp, June 7; Eric Gales, June 8; Jonah Koslen, Tommy Dobeck and Daniel Pecchio — founding members of the Michael Stanley Band, June 9; Bruce Cockburn, Dar Williams, June 13; Phillip Phillips, June 17; Darrell Scott, June 24; Toad the Wet Sproket, June 25; Hard Day’s Night, June 30; JD Souther, July 15; A Flock of Seagulls, Annabella, July 21; Vanilla Fudge, July 22; Spyro Gyra, Aug. 11; Pablo Cruise, Aug. 13; Steve Earle, Aug. 16; Al Stewart, The Empty Pockets, Aug. 20; Devon Allman & Donavon Frankenreiter, Matt Costa, Aug. 25; Men Without Hats, Annabella, Sept. 1; Marcc Nutter and Friends, Sept. 9; Mighty Poplar, Sept. 15; Humble Pie Legacy, Sept. 24; CLANNAD, Sept. 29; Jimmy Webb, Oct. 15; Harry Chapin at 80: A Retrospective, Oct. 21; Donna the Buffalo, Nov. 9. Call 330-677-5005 or visit kentstage.org.

Lorain Palace Theatre: 617 Broadway, Lorain, presents Emerson, Lake & Palmer, July 15; Back to the 90’s, featuring Ton Loc, Color Me Badd, Young MC and hosted by Christopher “Kid” Reid,” Aug. 5; Stars of the Sixties featuring Herman’s Hermits’ Peter Noone, Oct. 20; Puddle of Mudd, Saving Abel, Oct. 28. Call 440-245-2323 or visit lorainpalace.com.

Madison Concerts in the Park: a series with shows at 7 p.m. at Madison Village Park, River and West Main streets, presents Steve Madewell, June 2; Nick Zuber, June 9; Risk factor, June 16; Glass House Band, June 23; Gospel Friends, June 30; Geauga Fair Band, July 7; The Swamp Rattlers, July 14; Madtown Jazz, July 21; Rte 202, July 28; Back When (Aug. 4), Night Owls, Aug. 11; Kelly & Randall, Aug. 18; Take II Band, Aug. 25. Call 440-428-7526.

Masonic Cleveland: 3615 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, presents Potions and Player Dave, July 21; My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, Nov. 2. Visit MasonicCleveland.com.

Prince tribute act The Prince Experience will open the 2023 Mentor Rocks concert series at Metnor Civic Amphitheater with a performance at 7 p.m. June 6. Details: mentorrocks.info. (Submitted)
Prince tribute act The Prince Experience will open the 2023 Mentor Rocks concert series at Metnor Civic Amphitheater with a performance at 7 p.m. June 6. Details: mentorrocks.info. (Submitted)

Mentor Rocks concert series: with shows at 7 p.m. at Mentor Civic Amphitheater, 8600 Munson Road, presents The Prince Experience (Prince tribute), June 6; Nirvani (Nirvana tribute), June 13; Parmalee,, June 20; Queen Nation (Queen tribute), June 27; E5C4P3 (Journey tribute), July 4; Simply Spice (Spice Girls tribute), July 11; Right Now (Sammy Hagar-era Van Halen tribute), July 18; Terry Lee Goffee (Johnny Cash tribute), July 25; Just Like Pink (Pink tribute), Aug. 1; Sound of Sting (Police/Sting tribute), Aug. 8; to-be-announced national recording artist, Aug. 15; Forever Seger Band (Bob Seger tribute), Aug. 29; Dark Side of the Moon (Pink Floyd tribute). Visit mentorrocks.info.

MGM Northfield Park: 10777 Northfield Road, Northfield, presents Santana, June 25; Counting Crows, Dashboard Confessional, June 29; Scotty McCreery, July 7; Ann Wilson of Heart, Tripsitter, July 14; Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo, Chris Trapper, July 22; Donny Osmond, July 28; Tesla, Aug. 4; Happy Together Tour 2023, featuring The Turtles, Little Anthony, Gary Puckett & The Union Gap, The Vogues, Aug. 6; Parliament Funkadelic ft. George Clinton, Aug. 24; Don Felder, Aug. 26; Air Supply, Sept. 9; George Thorogood & The Destroyers, Sept. 12; Beth Hart, Sept. 23; Engelbert Humperdinck, Oct. 21; Great White, Slaughter, Oct. 28; Aaron Lewis (acoustic), Nov. 16. Call 330-908-7625 or visit mgmnorthfieldpark.mgmresorts.com.

Music Box Supper Club: 1148 Main Ave., Cleveland, presents Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Brunch featuring Long Time Gon, June 4; Carols Jones+, June 4; Mac McAnally, June 7; Billy Prine & The Prine Time Band present The Songs of John Prine, June 8; JP Soars & The Red Hots, Anne Harris, June 9; John Pizzarelli Trio, June 9; ABBA Brunch with Super Troupers, June 11; Umojah Nation, June 11; Irish Brunch with Custy & McNamara, June 11; Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country, June 14; Classic Stones Live featuring The Glimmer Tiwns, June 15; Stevie Wonder Night with The Reid Project, June 17; Father’s Day Beatles Brunch with The Sunrise Jones, June 18; Father’s Day Jimmy Buffett Brunch with Cheeseburgers in Paradise, June 18; Jah Messengers, June 18; Billy Bob Thornton & The Boxmasters, June 20; Queen tribute by Queen Flash, June 23; Drag Bingo with Veranda L’Ni & Friends, June 23; Fleetwood Mac Brunch with Rumours, June 25; Ghani & The No Bad Daze Band, June 25; Stella Maris Rock of Faith (benefit concert), June 25; Dave Alvin & The Guilty Ones, June 28; Griffin House, June 29; The Gholden Gays Hot Flashbacks, June 30; Neil Diamond Night with The Diamond Project, July 1; Elton John Brunch with Tommy Lee Thompson, July 2; Steely Dan Brunch with The FM Project,” July 2; The Ark Band, July 2; Jesus Jones, The American Scientific, July 3; ELO Tribute by Ticket to the Moon, July 4; Nightbridge, July 4; Van Morrison Tribute with Nitebridge & Colin Dussault, July 7; Lil’ Ed & The Blues Imperials, July 13; Hawaiian Elvis tribute by Dave Banks Big Band Featuring Walt Sanders, July 14; Chicago Tribute by Brass Metropolis, July 15; Tom Petty Night with Shadow of Doubt, July 15; Blues Brunch with Colin Dussault & Friends, July 16; Rooftop VIP Members Party, July 16; Lazo & Exodus (Bob Marley show), July 16; Joslyn & The Sweet Compression, July 16; Peter Mayer Group, July 20; The Songs of Burt Bacharach with Nitebridge and guests, July 21; Dolly Parton Brunch with Rachel & The Beatnik Playboys, July 23; Pink Floyd Brunch with Dark Side of the Moon, July 23; Elementree Livity Project, July 23; Madeline Finn & Friends, July 27; Bluegrass Brunch with The Chatfield Boys, July 30; Billy Joel Brunch with 52nd St Stranger, July 30; The Flex Crew, July 30; In the Heartland, July 30; Los Lobos, Aug. 3; The Dave Matthews Tribute Band, Aug. 4; Sun Shade, Aug. 6; REM tribute by Dead Letter Office. Aug. 9; Carl Baldassarre’s Led Zeppelin Revival, Aug. 11; Paul Thorn, Aug. 9; Big Band Brunch with Dan Zola Orchestra, Aug. 13; Shake Ground, Aug. 13; Bettye LaVette, Aug. 16; Morgan James, Aug. 17; The Smithereens with guest vocalist Marshall Crenshaw, Aug. 18; One World Tribe, Aug. 20; Lori McKenna, Mark Erelli, Aug. 24; Ras Khalifa, Aug. 27; Phat Cat Swinger, Aug. 31; Carlos Jones+, Sept. 3; Tuba Skinny, Sept. 6; Malinda, Sept. 12; Waco Brothers, Sept. 21; Joshua Radin, Sept. 26; Rush tribute with Sawyer, Oct. 5; Tannahill Weavers, Oct. 18; Neil Young tribute by Broken Arrow, Oct. 19; Professor Louie and The Crowmatix, Oct. 27; Eagles Brunch with Out Of Eden, Oct. 29; The Jersey Beat Band, Nov. 25. Call 216-242-1250 or visit musicboxcle.com.

Perry Christian Church: 3270 Call Road, Perry, presents outdoor Christmas in July Market, with proceeds being used for mission projects, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. July 15. Call 440-537-4907.

Piano Cleveland: presents the 2023 Cleveland International Piano Competition for Young Artists, June 22 through July 15 at various locations; Cleveland International Piano Competition, July 28 through Aug. 10, 2024. Call 216-707-5397 or visit PianoCleveland.org.

Playhouse Square: 1501 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, presents Nick Cave (solo), Sept. 25; Straight No Chaser, Dec. 2. Call 216-241-6000 or visit PlayhouseSquare.org.

Quire Cleveland: presents “Churches of the Same God: Mass Settings of Byrd and Tallis,” 7:30 p.m. Sept. 29 at Saint Paschal Baylon Church, Highland Heights | 8 p.m. Sept. 30 at Our Lady of Peach Church, Shaker Square | and 4 p.m. Oct. 1 at St. John Cantius Church, Cleveland. Call 216-223-8854 or visit QuireCleveland.org.

Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse: 1 Center Court, Cleveland, presents Zach Bryan, Trampled by Turtles, June 2; Paramore, June 4; Bryan Adams, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, June 15; Alicia Keys, July 15; Madonna, Bob the Drag Queen, Aug. 2; LL Cool J, The Roots, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Common, Method Man, Redman, Aug. 12; Jonas Brothers, Sept. 18; Aerosmith, The Black Crowes, Sept. 21; Greta Van Fleet, Surf Curse, Sept. 23; Peter Gabriel, Sept. 27; Pink, Grouplove, Kidcutup, Nov. 8; Depeche Mode, Nov. 10. Call 888-894-9422 or visit rocketmortgagefieldhouse.com.

Northeast Ohio act Disco Inferno is set to perform June 2 at Lorain's Black Water Landing in a Rockin' on the River gig also set to feature 1980s rock tribute act 1988. Details: rockinontheriver.com. (Submitted)
Northeast Ohio act Disco Inferno is set to perform June 2 at Lorain’s Black Water Landing in a Rockin’ on the River gig also set to feature 1980s rock tribute act 1988. Details: rockinontheriver.com. (Submitted)

Rockin’ on the River: at Lorain’s Black Water Landing, presents Disco Inferno, 1988 (1980s rock tribute), June 2; Hotel California (Eagles tribute), My Drunk’n Uncle, June 9; The King & Queen of Country Music (Garth Brooks-and-Shania Twain tribute), Country Honk, June 16; E5C4P3 (Journey tribute), Best of Times (Styx tribute), June 17; 24K Magic! (Bruno Mars tribute), Nonica Robins and The Whiskey Kings, June 30; Dirty Deeds (AC/DC tribute), Back & Forth (Foo Fighters tribute), July 7; Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd tribute), Colin Dussault’s Blues Project, July 8; Face 2 Face (Elton John-and-Billy Joel tribute), Zoo Station (U2 tribute), July 14; Queen Nation (Queen tribute), Black River, July 28; Bee Gees Gold (Bee Gees tribute), Dancing Queen (ABBA tribute), The Michael Weber Show, July 29; Forever Seger (Bob Seger tribute), Moving in Stereo (Cars tribute), Aug. 4; Double Vision (Foreigner tribute), The FM Project (Steely Dan tribute), Aug. 11; The Atomic Punks (Van Halen tribute), Motley Inc. (Motley Crue tribute), Aug. 18; Who’s Bad (Michael Jackson tribute), Shout!, Aug. 19; ZOSO (Led Zeppelin tribute), House Party (J Geils tribute), Aug. 25; Fleetwood Gold (Fleetwood Mac tribute), Harvest (Neil Young tribute), Sept. 1; Revival ABB (Allman Brothers Band tribute), Freebird (Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute), Sept. 8; The Four Horsemen (Metallica tribute), Billy Morris and the Sunset Strip, Sept. 15. Visit rockinontheriver.com.

Victory Live!: a two-day musical featuring WMMS Buzzard Fest — with Incubus, Bush, +Live+, Filter, Weshly Arms — on Aug. 4 and WGAR Country Jam — Chris Young, Brian Kelley, Gavin DeGraw, Dalton Dover, Tigirlily Gold — on Aug. 5 at Victory Park Ohio, 7777 Victory Lane, North Ridgeville. Visit victorylivefest.com.

WonderStruck in Cleveland: a music festival with headliners Khalid, Walker Hayes, Nelly and Flo Rida, will be July 8 and 9 at Lakeland Community College, 7700 Clocktower Drive, Kirtland. Visit WonderStruckFest.com.

Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre: 201 S. Phelps St., Youngstown, presents REO Speedwagon, Donnie Iris & The Cruisers, June 21; Rick Springfield, The Hooters, Paul Young, Tommy Tutone, Aug. 4; The Doobie Brothers, June 28; Steve Miller Band, Aug. 9. Visit theyoungstownfoundationamp.com.

Nightlife

Bainbridge Swing Dance: at Family Life Center, 16349 Chillicothe Road, Chagrin Falls, presents Blues DeVille, June 3 (lesson at 8 p.m., dancing and music at 9 p.m.). Visit WillCraigProductions.com.

Ferrante Winery and Ristorante: 5585 N. River Road W., Geneva, presents Then Neverleys Duo, 5:30 p.m. June 2; Bobby Potts, 1 p.m. June 3; Porch Rockers, 5:30 p.m. June 3; Eric Andrews, 2 p.m. June 4; Mitch & Melissa, 5:30 p.m. June 9; Eric Andrews 1 p.m. June 10; 4-Kings, 5:30 p.m. June 10; Dennis Ford, 2 p.m. June 11; Uncharted Course, 5:30 p.m. June 16; Anthony Gregorie, 1 p.m. June 17; O’Neiders, 5:30 p.m. June 17; Tommy Hook, 2 p.m. June 18; The Night Shift, 5:30 p.m. June 23; Holly’s Uncle Duo, 1 p.m. June 24; Back Spin, 5:30 p.m. June 24; Porch Rockers, 2 p.m. June 25; Don Perry, 5:30 p.m. June 30. Call 440-466-8466 or visit ferrantewinery.com.

Parks

Holden Arboretum: 9550 Sperry Road, Kirtland, presents “Sean Kenney’s Nature Connects Made with LEGO Bricks,” featuring “more than a dozen colorful creations that will pop out of garden and trail landscapes creating a magical new world at the arboretum,” through Sept. 4; “Bloom! Botanicals & Birdhouses, featuring “hundreds of unique birdhouses, stunning glass art, and artwork from Cleveland artist Asia Armour,” through Sept. 4; Twilight at the Arboretum, a benefit pick with music and entertainment for the family, 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. July 15.. Visit holdenarb.org.

Lake Erie Bluffs: 3301 Lane Road, Perry, presents Best of the Bluffs: Migration Rest Stop, 1 to 4 p.m. June 4. Call 440-358-7275 or visit lakemetroparks.com/parks-trails/lake-erie-bluffs.

Lake Metroparks Farmpark: 8800 Chardon Road, Kirtland, presents Railroads in the Park, featuring operating model train displays and N-Scale layouts, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 3 and 4; Farmfest, a free event with food, beer, music, cow milking, farm demonstrations and more, July 9; Historical Engine Society’s 52nd annual Antique Power Exhibition, featuring a variety of antique tractors, construction and excavation equipment, cars, trucks, demonstrations and more, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. July 20; Milk & Honey Weekend, in which visitors can “Learn how milk becomes cheese, butter or ice cream and watch the production process, learn about bees and their role in pollination, how honey is harvested, pollinator-friendly plants and more, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Aug. 19 and 20. Call 440-256-2122 or 800-366-3276, or visit goto.lakemetroparks.com/farmpark.

Penitentiary Glen Reservation: 8668 Kirtland-Chardon Road, Kirtland, presents Wildlife Festival: Celebrating 40 Years, a celebration of 40 years of helping Ohio’s wildlife with activity, history and more, noon to 4 p.m. July 23. Call 440-256-1404 or visit lakemetroparks.com/parks-trails/penitentiary-glen-reservation.

Theater

Beck Center for the Arts: 17801 Detroit Ave., Lakewood, presents “Doubt: A Parable,” by John Patrick Shanley, through June 25, in Studio Theater; “Once on This Island,” with book and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and music by Stephen Flaherty,” through Aug. 6, in Senney Theater. Call 216-521-2540 or visit beckcenter.org.

BorderLight International Theatre + Fringe Festival: featuring an eclectic mix of touring and regional productions, will be Aug. 3 through 5 in and around Playhouse Square in Cleveland. Visit BorderLightCle.org.

Broadway in Akron: a series at E.J. Thomas Hall in conjunction with Playhouse Square, presents “Pretty Woman: The Musical,” Oct. 17 and 19; “Mean Girls,” Nov. 13 and 14; “The Cher Show,” Jan. 30 and 31; “CLUE,” April 23 through 25. Call 330-253-2488 or visit broadwayinakron.com.

Cast members of the Chagrin Valley Little Theatre production of the Henry Lewis comedy "The Play That Goes Wrong" rehearse a scene. Opening June 2, the Chagrin Falls show runs weekends through June 18. Details: CVLT.org. (Courtesy of Chagrin Valley Little Theatre)
Cast members of the Chagrin Valley Little Theatre production of the Henry Lewis comedy “The Play That Goes Wrong” rehearse a scene. Opening June 2, the Chagrin Falls show runs weekends through June 18. Details: CVLT.org. (Courtesy of Chagrin Valley Little Theatre)

Chagrin Valley Little Theatre: 40 River St., Chagrin Falls, presents “The Play That Goes Wrong,” a comedy by Henry Lewis, weekends June 2 through 18 (7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. June 11 and 18). Call 440-247-8955 or visit CVLT.org.

Clague Playhouse: 1371 Clague Road, Westlake, presents “Failure: A Love Story,” by Philip Dawkins, through June 4. Call 440-331-0403 or visit ClaguePlayhouse.org.

Cleveland Play House: Performing at Playhouse Square, presents “Watching Butterflies,” June 17 through 24. Call 216-241-6000 or visit clevelandplayhouse.com.

convergence-continuum: 2438 Scranton Road, Cleveland, presents “Walking to Buchenwald,” by Tom Jacobson, June 2 through 24 (8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays). Call 216-687-0074 or visit convergence-continuum.org.

Fine Arts Association: 38660 Mentor Ave., Willoughby, presents “The Who’s Tommy,” June 9 through 25. Call 440-951-7500 or visit fineartsassociation.org.

Karamu House: 2355 E. 89th St., Cleveland, presents “Clyde’s,” by Lynn Nottage, Sept. 22 through Oct. 15; “Black Nativity,” by Langston Huges,” Dec. 1 through 17; “The Breakfast at the Bookstore,” by Lisa Langford, Jan. 26 through Feb. 18; “It Happened in Atlanta,” March 8 through 30; “Choir Boy,” April 26 through May 19. Call 216-795-7070 or visit KaramuHouse.org.

Playhouse Square: 1501 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, presents “Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” June 7 through July 2; “Late Nite Catechism,” June 11; Two Faces of Jane’s “People, Places and Things,” Thursdays through Sundays June 22 to July 2; “Six the Musical,” Aug. 8 through Sept. 19; “The Wiz,” Oct. 3 through 22; “Girl From the North Country,” Oct. 31 through Nov. 19; “Mrs. Doubtfire,” Jan. 9 through 28; “Funny Girl,” Feb. 20 through March 10; “Company,” April 30 through May 19; “BAck to the Future,” June 11 through July 7; “MJ the Musical,” July 16 through Aug. 11. Call 216-241-6000 or visit PlayhouseSquare.org.

Porthouse Theatre: 3143 O’Neil Road, Cuyahoga Falls, presents “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” June 9 through 24; “The Marvelous Wonderettes,” June 30 through July 15; “The Prom, July 21 through Aug. 6. Call 330-672-3884 or visit PorthouseTheatre.com.

Rabbit Run Theater: 5648 W. Chapel Road, Madison Township, presents “Dancing at Lughnasa,” a drama by Brian Friel, 7:30 p.m. June 1 through 4 and 8 through 10. Call 440-428-7092 or visit RabbitRun.org.

Misc.

Agora Theatre & Ballroom: 5000 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, presents Watcher Podcast: ghost Files, Oct. 8. Visit AgoraCleveland.com.

Beachland Ballroom: 15711 Waterloo Road, Cleveland, presents Beachland Flea, June 17, July 15, Aug. 19. Call 216-383-1124 or visit beachlandballroom.com.

Beck Center for the Arts: 17801 Detroit Ave., Lakewood, presents Poetry Readings and Storytelling series — 2 to 4 p.m. June 10; Spotlight Gala, with the theme, “Celebrating Our Past, Creating Our Future,” 6 p.m. July 14 at Gordon Green. Call 216-521-2540, or visit beckcenter.org.

Candytopia: a “nationally acclaimed, sweet interactive wonderland” featuring 14 interactive environments over 19,000 square feet, runs through Dec. 31 at Legacy Village in Lyndhurst (located between Dick’s Sporting Goods and Ethan Allen). Visit Candytopia.com.

Chagrin Hunter Jumper Classic: a horse show, runs July 7 through 9 at Chagrin valley Farms in Bainbridge Township. Visit ChagrinHunterJumperClassic.org.

Cleveland Botanical Garden: 11030 East Blvd., presents “Bloom! Botanicals & Birdhouses,” featuring “hundreds of unique birdhouses, stunning glass art, and artwork from Cleveland artist Asia Armour,” opening through Sept. 4; “Sean Kenney’s Nature Connects Made with LEGO Bricks,” featuring more than a dozen larger-than-life creations, through Sept. 4. Call 216-721-1600 or visit cbgarden.org.

Cleveland Museum of Art: 11150 East Blvd., presents Parade the Circle, noon June 10 in Wade Oval; Solstice, “an energy-filled night of music and art,” with 7 p.m. June 24. Call 216-421-7340 or visit clevelandart.org.

Cleveland Public Theatre: 6415 Detroit Ave., Cleveland, presents Pandemonium 2023, CPT’s “Fantastical Benefit” honoring Nic Bariage, Sept. 9. Call 216-631-2727 or visit cptonline.org.

Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum:10825 East Blvd., Cleveland, presents “Top Brass,” featuring Fred Crawford’s collection as it was when this museum’s predecessor—The Thompson Auto Album—first opened in 1943, through Oct. 8. Visit thecrawfordmuseum.org.

Disney Animation — Immersive Experience: a collaboration of Walt Disney Animation Studios and Lighthouse Immersive Studios, the producer of “Immersive Van Gogh,” featuring projections and music pertaining to Disney classics, runs through Aug. 13 at Lighthouse Artspace Cleveland, 850 E. 72nd St., Cleveland. Visit lighthouseimmersive.com/disney/cleveland.

FireFish Arts: presents the 2023 annual FireFish Festival, featuring “unique art installations, music, food, fun, fire – and the much anticipated and signature burning of the FireFish with its parade, pageantry, and performance,” Sept. 16 in Lorain. Visit FireFishFestival.com.

Great Lakes Science Center: 601 Erieside Ave., Cleveland, presents “”Dinosaurs of the Sahara,” bringing “the unique world of African dinosaurs to life with original fossils from the Sahara, one-of-a-kind mounted skeletons and flesh models, and a show-stopping giant 32-foot rearing long-necked Jobaria skeleton,” through Sept. 4. Call 216-694-2000 or visit greatscience.com.

Juneteenth Freedom Fest: featuring musical performances, live visual artists, fireworks show, educational workshops and more, will be 6 to 10 p.m. June 16 and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 17 at Mall C in downtown Cleveland. Visit juneteenthcle.com.

LakewoodAlive: presents Lakewood Summer Meltdown, a street party, 4 to 10 p.m. July 15 at in downtown Lakewood. Visit LakewoodAlive.org.

Loganberry Books: 13015 Larchmere Blvd., Shaker Heights, presents “Lightness of Being,” an evening of live chamber music and a panel discussion on the novel “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Milan Kundera, 7 p.m. June 8. Call 216-795-9800, visit LoganberryBooks.com or email books@logan.com.

Lorain Palace Theatre: 617 Broadway, Lorain, presents Michael Franzase’s “A Mob Story,” June 24. Call 440-245-2323 or visit lorainpalace.com.

MGM Northfield Park: 10777 Northfield Road, Northfield, presents psychic medium Matt Fraser, Aug. 10. Call 330-908-7625 or visit mgmnorthfieldpark.mgmresorts.com.

Music Box Supper Club: 1148 Main Ave., Cleveland, presents A Night of Magic, featuring David McCreary, June 16; Cleveland Stories Dinner Parties — “From Rocking on the Radio . . . to Rocking the RV Life,” with Jeff & Patti Kinzbach, June 28; Cleveland Stories Dinner Parties — “Noir at the Bar,” Aug. 31. Call 216-242-1250 or visit musicboxcle.com.

Ohio Scottish Games & Celtic Festival: featuring music, competitions and more, will be June 23 and 24 at the Cuyahoga County Fairgrounds in Berea. Visit ohioscottishgames.com.

Put-in-Bay Chamber of Commerce & Tourism Bureau: presents first Pride at Put-in-Bay, “a vibrant day filled with laughter, color, and good vibes,” June 12; Ohio’s Island Wine Festival, June 17; Pyrate Fest XV, which is “promisin’ a swashbucklin’ good time for the whole crew … full of pirate antics, mermaid sightings, and booming cannons, June 23 through 25. Visit visitputinbay.com.

 

Reithoffer’s Art, Spirits & Entertainment: 17711 Ravenna Road, Chagrin Valls, presents Aurburn Art Festivals, featuring artisan crafts, food trucks, music and more, June 16 through 18 and Aug. 18 through 20 (5 to 8 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday). Visit reithoffers.com.

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum: Cleveland, presents “The Beatles: Get Back to Let It Be,” curated by the Rock Hall and meant as an immersive complement to Peter Jackson’s docuseries “The Beatles Get Back,” through December (extended). Call 888-588-ROCK or visit rockhall.com.

Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse: 1 Center Court, Cleveland, presents Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s The Greatest Show On Earth, Oct. 6 through 8. Call 888-894-9422 or visit rocketmortgagefieldhouse.com.

Steele Mansion Inn & Gathering Hub: 348 Mentor Ave. Painesville, presents Public Guided Tour, June 20, Sept. 19. Call 440-639-7948 or visit SteeleMansion.com.

Wolstein Center: 2000 Prospect Ave., presents Cirque du Soleil’s “Corteo,” Nov. 22 through 26. Call 877-468-4946 or visit wolsteincenter.com.

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June arts scene sizzles as summer arrives

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Summer is here, or at least the month that welcomes summer is here. You’ll have to wait three weeks from the start of June for summer to begin officially, but let’s ignore all that official folderol and welcome that glorious season and its arrival in Vermont.

Summer’s start means summer arts. Music and plays head outdoors, and indoor events provide a cool refuge for those fairly infrequent Vermont days when the hot seasonal air becomes too much to bear.

Bear witness to some of these events that help Vermonters celebrate what it means to be alive and in Vermont at this darned-close-to-perfect time of year.

A scene from the Lost Nation Theater production of Vermont playwright/actor/director Erin Galligan Baldwin’s play “My Mother’s Three Mothers."

Lost Nation Theater premieres Vermont play

Through June 11, the world premiere production of Vermont playwright/actor/director Erin Galligan Baldwin’s play “My Mother’s Three Mothers,” which involves a woman’s search for her birth mother, continues its run that began May 25 by Lost Nation Theater, Montpelier City Hall Arts Center. $10-$30. www.lostnationtheater.org

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Notable Deaths in 2023

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Tina Turner Performs At Wembley Arena In 1985

Tina Turner on stage at Webley Arena in London during her 1985 “Private Dancer” tour. | Pete Still/Redferns via Getty Images


A look back at the esteemed personalities who left us this year, who’d touched us with their innovation, creativity and humanity.

By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan. The Associated Press contributed to this gallery.


Singer Tina Turner (November 26, 1939-May 24, 2023) had a smoldering voice and aggressive dance moves that powered a five-decade career as one of the biggest stars in rock music. She sold more than 200 million records, including such classics as “Proud Mary,” “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” “Private Dancer,” and “We Don’t Need Another Hero.”

“I had the strange voice that most girl singers didn’t have,” she admitted to “Sunday Morning” in 2018. “Deep, like now, and even it goes deeper,” she said. But at the beginning she didn’t like her voice: “I thought it was kind of ugly because it didn’t sound like Diana Ross. But then afterwards I thought, ‘Yeah, it sounds like the guys.'”

Born in Nutbush, Tennessee, Anna Mae Bullock – a tomboy from a broken home – saw Ike Turner perform at a St. Louis nightclub. She had conflicting reactions: “I thought he was the ugliest person I’d ever seen,” she told “Sunday Morning.” “But he had a presence. And then I watched him when he got on stage and he started. I thought, ‘Oh, wow, I wanna sing with that band!'”

And when her voice was tracked on a demo recording of “A Fool in Love,” it made its way to the president of Sue Records, who convinced Ike to put the dancer up front. The Ike & Tina Turner Revue became one of the most successful acts of the late ’60s and ’70s, opening for the Rolling Stones in 1966 and 1969, and producing such hits as “A Fool in Love,” “It’s Going to Work Out Fine,” “Poor Fool,” “River Deep – Mountain High,” “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long,” “Come Together,” “I Want to Take You Higher,” and “Proud Mary,” their highest-charted song.

Ike controlled all aspects of the Revue (not least of which he picked out her stage name, Tina) and was physically and emotionally abusive. He forced her to perform even when she suffered with bronchitis, pneumonia, and a collapsed right lung. “He was cruel because he depended on me,” Tina said. “He didn’t like that he had had to depend on me. And I didn’t want to start a fight because it was always a black eye, a broken nose, a busted lip, a rib.”

She credited her emerging Buddhist faith in the mid-1970s with giving her a sense of strength and self-worth. She finally left him in early July 1976, sneaking out of a Dallas hotel room while Ike slept, with only a Mobil credit card and 36 cents. “I felt that I’ve had enough, just enough, enough. Now it’s time to go out the door. I had nothing. I had absolutely nothing. Thirty-six cents, that was all.”

Physically battered, emotionally devastated and financially ruined, Turner strove to remake herself as a solo artist. Though her first album flopped, she performed with other rock stars who helped bring her into the spotlight again. Rod Stewart convinced her to sing “Hot Legs” with him on “Saturday Night Live,” and Jagger sang “Honky Tonk Women” with her during the Stones’ 1981-82 tour.

Her album “Private Dancer,” released in May 1984, sold more than eight million copies and featured several hit singles, including the title track, “Better Be Good To Me,” and “What’s Love Got To Do With It,” a song she’d originally turned down. But she went into the studio and “applied my voice.” At age 44, Tina Turner had her first #1 single. It would become her signature song, and a Grammy-winner for Record of the Year.

Her 1986 memoir “I, Tina,” expanded in grisly detail the horrors of her former husband’s abuse. [Ike, who did not deny mistreating her, died in 2007.] Speaking out candidly about suffering from domestic abuse, Turner became a heroine to battered women, and a symbol of resilience. The story of her suffering behind the scenes was dramatized in the 1993 film “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” starring Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne (both of whom were Oscar-nominated).

She was voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 with Ike (and again, on her own, in 2021), and was a Kennedy Center Honoree in 2005.

Turner performed her last tour in 2007, and settled into retirement in Switzerland. In her later years she endured a stroke, intestinal cancer, kidney failure (her second husband, Erwin Bach, donated one of his to her), and the death by suicide of her 59-year-old son, Craig Turner. She was executive producer of the 2019 Broadway musical “Tina,” which earned its star, Adrienne Warren, a Tony Award for her physically-demanding performance.

When asked if there is anything more in life that she wanted, Turner told “Sunday Morning,” “No. I have everything. When I sit at the Lake Zurich in the house that I have, I am so serene. No problems. I had a very hard life. But I didn’t put blame on anything or anyone. I got through it, I lived through it with no blame. And I’m a happy person.”

Vida Blue

New York Yankees v Oakland Athletics

Pitcher Vida Blue of the Oakland Athletics pitches against the New York Yankees in August 1969 at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. | Focus On Sport/Getty Images


Pitcher Vida Blue (July 28, 1949-May 6, 2023) was one of baseball’s leading lights in the early 1970s. A six-time All-Star, Blue helped pitch the Oakland Athletics to three consecutive World Series titles, from 1972-74. (Only the 1998-2000 New York Yankees have repeated that accomplishment.)

Called up before his 20th birthday, in 1970 he became the fourth-youngest player in history to throw a no-hitter, at age 21. Blue was voted the 1971 American League Cy Young Award winner and the league’s Most Valuable Player after going 24-8 with a 1.82 ERA and 301 strikeouts. He recorded 24 complete games, including eight shutouts. But, with a salary of only $14,000, Blue was called “the most underpaid player in baseball” by President Richard Nixon.

Blue clashed publicly with A’s owner Charlie O. Finley, and was traded twice, only to be blocked each time by baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn.

In 2013 Blue (one of the first players to bring an attorney to the negotiating table) talked with CBS News Radio about the business of baseball: “The owners are real savvy in how they sign players, and players are real savvy in how they, you know, approach getting their raises,” he said.

“It’s cruel sometimes. Fans may not understand it. But owners and general managers, that’s how they make their living through the business of baseball.”

His career was derailed by drug problems; in 1983 Blue was released by the Royals and ordered to serve three months in federal prison and fined $5,000 for misdemeanor possession of approximately a tenth of an ounce of cocaine. He returned to baseball in 1985 for two seasons with the Giants.

Blue finished with a 209-161 record, with a 3.27 ERA, 2,175 strikeouts, 143 complete games and 37 shutouts over 17 seasons with Oakland, San Francisco and Kansas City.

“It tarnished my image,” Blue told the Washington Post in 2021. “Not that I was squeaky clean. I didn’t have a halo and [stuff], but I had a reputation of being a respectable, reputable person. I worked my tail off to polish that image back up and renew the name Vida Blue Jr. But it’s a constant battle to do that every day.” 

Gordon Lightfoot

Gordon Lightfoot Performs In Concert

Canadian folk-rock singer and songwriter Gordon Lightfoot performs on the 1970s TV series “Midnight Special.” | Fotos International/Getty Images


Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot (November 17, 1938-May 1, 2023) sang of lives lost in shipwrecks and love gone bad. Considered one of the most renowned voices to emerge from Toronto’s Yorkville folk club scene in the 1960s, it was in his hometown of Orelia that Lightfoot remembers singing for his first audience, standing on his grandmother’s kitchen table. “I remember the applause,” he said.

He grew up performing in church choirs and barber shop quartets. In 1958, he made a bold move: heading to Los Angeles to study music. His big break came in 1965, when Peter, Paul and Mary recorded his song, “For Lovin’ Me.”

Lightfoot went on to record 20 studio albums. He penned hundreds of songs, including “Carefree Highway” and “Sundown,” many of which were recorded by a galaxy of stars, from Barbra Streisand, Harry Belafonte, Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan, to The Grateful Dead, Elvis Presley, Jane’s Addiction and Sarah McLachlan.

Most of his songs were deeply autobiographical, with lyrics that probed his own experiences in a frank manner, and explored issues surrounding the Canadian national identity. “If You Could Read My Mind,” followed the breakup of his first marriage. “Early Morning Rain” was sparked by homesickness. His chart-topping “Sundown” was a chronicle of infidelity. His 1975 song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” was inspired by a Great Lakes ore freighter meeting disaster. “Newsweek magazine gave about a half a page and a little tiny photograph about this big. And I said, ‘That’s not good enough for this type of thing to go by totally unnoticed.'”

Other hits included “I’m Not Sayin’,” “Ribbon of Darkness,” “You Are What I Am,” “Rainy Day People,” and “The Circle Is Small (I Can See It in Your Eyes).” Perhaps no Lightfoot song was more Canadian than 1966’s “Canadian Railroad Trilogy,” which chronicled the building of the trans-Canada railroad.

Unlike others who found success in the United States and stayed, Lightfoot returned to his homeland, a matter of pride in Canada, where he wound up on a postage stamp. And even into his 70s he was still touring. “When you walk out in front of a crowd, you really got to give it everything – never less than what they expect from you,” he told “Sunday Morning” in 2013. 

Jerry Springer

Jerry Springer Gesturing While Taping His Show

Talk show host Jerry Springer in an undated photo. | © Ralf-Finn Hestoft/Corbis via Getty Images


The one-time news anchor and mayor of Cincinnati in the late 1970s, Jerry Springer (February 13, 1944-April 27, 2023) became a household name as host of the controversial and contentious syndicated television show which showcased homewreckers, strippers, and violent on-air brawls for 27 colorful seasons, until 2018. It held the honors of both topping Oprah Winfrey’s show in the ratings, and being proclaimed by TV Guide “the worst TV show ever.”

Born to German Jewish immigrants in an underground bomb shelter in London during World War II, Springer came to U.S. at age five. He studied political science at Tulane University and got a law degree from Northwestern. He entered the political arena as an aide in Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign. Working for a Cincinnati law firm, Springer ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1970, before being elected to city council in 1971. He abruptly resigned in 1974, later admitting it was due to an investigation into his having solicited prostitutes. (He’d paid them with personal checks.)

But he quickly bounced back, winning a council seat in 1975 and serving as mayor in 1977. He later became a local TV politics reporter.

Springer began his talk show in 1991 in a more traditional format, but two years later, it got a sleazy makeover.

In the late 1990s Springer offered a defense for the obscenity-laced content he broadcast. “Look, television does not and must not create values, it’s merely a picture of all that’s out there – the good, the bad, the ugly … Believe this: The politicians and companies that seek to control what each of us may watch are a far greater danger to America and our treasured freedom than any of our guests ever were or could be.” He added that his guests volunteered to be on the show, and consequently volunteered to be subjected to ridicule or humiliation for their misbehavior.

And there was a lot of it: Porn stars, teenage adulterers, abusive lovers, cheating newlyweds, a man “married” to a horse, and someone described as a “kung fu hillbilly.”

And it wasn’t all escapist entertainment. In 2002 a man was convicted of killing his ex-wife, and of violating a domestic violence order, just weeks after they and another woman (whom he’d secretly married) were featured on a “Jerry Springer” episode about love triangles.

Springer used his celebrity to headline a liberal radio talk show, host “America’s Got Talent,” compete on “Dancing With the Stars,” and star in the nationally-syndicated “Judge Jerry.”

“With all the joking I do with the show, I’m fully aware and thank God every day that my life has taken this incredible turn because of this silly show,” Springer told the Cincinnati Enquirer in 2011.

Later, in his Twitter biography, Springer would describe himself as a “ringmaster of civilization’s end.”

Harry Belafonte

Harry Belafonte

Harry Belafonte in a recording studio, circa 1957. | Pictorial Parade/Getty Images


Blessed with a movie star’s good looks, an activist’s anger, and a voice that told songs of struggle, loss and sweet memory, Harry Belafonte (March 1, 1927-April 25, 2023) moved generations with both his rhythm and his rage, catching the social conscience of the nation as he caught their ear with such hits as “Day-O,” “Matilda,” and “Jamaica Farewell.”

The first artist to sell a million albums with the 1956 release of “Calypso,” Belafonte would go on to become an EGOT winner (earning an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony), a Kennedy Center Honoree, and a recipient of the National Medal of Arts. But his influence would become even more pronounced as an advocate for social justice at home and abroad, serving as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. He supported efforts for education, the eradication of nuclear weapons, and the fight against HIV/AIDS and apartheid.

Born in New York City to immigrant parents from the Caribbean, Belafonte said that as a child they were so poor his mother, a domestic worker, sent him and his brother to live for years in her native Jamaica. Growing up, he wrote in his memoir “My Song,” poverty was a constant companion. “It still nourishes my thinking,” he told “Sunday Morning” in 2011. “It still nourishes my passion.”

He returned to New York and, at age 17 and a high school dropout, Belafonte joined the Navy to fight in World War II. “Took me out of the rough-and-tough of the streets of Harlem and it gave me an environment where things were disciplined,” he said. “There was an objective. There was a purpose. There was an enemy.”

But his hopes that the discrimination he experienced as a Black man would end with the war were dashed: “I came back home to find out that nothing had changed. Black people were still being lynched, were still being denied. We were still being cruelly relegated to second-class experiences.”

Working as a janitor in a Harlem apartment building, he was given tickets by a tenant to the theater, which he had never attended. “It was an epiphany; something so inordinately powerful just sucked me in.” He began taking acting classes, with a bunch of misfits: Marlon Brando, Walter Matthau, Bea Arthur and Tony Curtis. He sang to pay for classes.

In addition to jazz standards, he also brought back traditional songs from his childhood, building a repertoire of Haitian and Spanish folk songs and calypso, trying out material at the famed Village Vanguard. Belafonte landed a recording contract. “Calypso” brought his singing everywhere.

He was cast in films like “Island in the Sun,” but in an era of continued segregation, studios didn’t know what to do with him. The producers of “Carmen Jones” dubbed his singing voice with that of an opera singer, and the script for the end-of-the-world drama “The World, the Flesh and the Devil” was rewritten when the chemistry between Belafonte and his white female co-star proved too romantic. “My thought was, you can’t change Hollywood. What you’ve got to do is change America,” he said.

So, he began to spend more time on social causes. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called Belafonte, asking for the singer’s help. He became one of King’s confidants and a big contributor to the civil rights movement, helping to organize the March on Washington.

In the years that followed, Belafonte threw himself into humanitarian work. Witnessing famine first-hand in Africa, he had the idea to gather some of the biggest recording artists of the 1980s to perform “We Are the World,” raising millions for famine relief.

And Belafonte began to speak out, sometimes stridently, about U.S. foreign policy. “I think that the patriotic citizen is commanded and demanded to raise his or her voice on issues that he thinks are to the best interest of the nation,” he says. “And that’s what I do. I have a platform. I speak out.”

But music would continue to be his biggest platform for justice. In 1961 Belafonte began a recording project, “The Long Road to Freedom,” to preserve the richness of music from the Black diaspora. Because of changes at record labels, and shifts in popular culture, the album would not be finalized and released until 40 years later. The five-CD album was critically praised, and was nominated for three Grammys.

Of the long-in-the-works album, he told “Sunday Morning” in 2001, “I’m more proud of the journey, the men and women whom I met along the way who brought their passion and their hopes to it. This is a validation, a gift from them. So, I’m kind of glad that, as I sit in what I call the spring of my winter years in life, I should have heard all this before I become just a memory.”

Len Goodman

ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" - Season 20 - Week Nine

Ballroom dancing judge Len Goodman on “Dancing With the Stars” in 2015. | Adam Taylor/Disney General Entertainment via Getty Images


A former professional ballroom dancer and British champion, Len Goodman (April 25, 1944-April 22, 2023) was a head judge on the British competition series “Strictly Come Dancing,” beginning in 2004, and on its American iteration, “Dancing With the Stars,” which debuted the following year. He would be with “DWTS” for most of its run until 2022, during which time ballroom dancing saw a resurgence in interest on both sides of the Atlantic.

As a young man, Goodman worked as a shipyard welder for the same company that built the Titanic. He got into dancing as the result of a foot injury. “I had an old Scottish doctor who told me to go ballroom dancing; he said it was very good for your feet because you’re going up and down a lot,” Goodman told The Guardian in 2006. “I really didn’t want to go, I kicked up a right fuss. But once I’d been for a couple of weeks, I really loved it. I realized I had a bit of a talent for it.”

As a professional he won the British Championships, and opened a dancing school in Kent.

A charming and pithy Englishman with a cockney accent and an endearing fondness for colorful exaltations (“You floated across that floor like butter on a crumpet”), Goodman once referred to himself as “a cup of tea in a world of skinny lattés.” As a judge he was encouraging, occasionally harsh and dismissive, but always, to most eyes, fair – and certainly appreciative when a celebrity contestant’s talent would blossom on the dance floor.

Goodman recalled a valuable piece of advice that came from his father: “He said that a person only needs three things in their life: work, a marriage and a hobby. When you boil it down, those are the only important things. I’ve always thought that was a great bit of advice. And I am very fortunate that I’ve had a job that was also my hobby.”

Dame Edna (a.k.a. Barry Humphries)

BARRY HUMPHRIES

Australian comedian Barry Humphries (right), and as his most famous character, Dame Edna Everage. | Steve Parsons, Jeff Geissler/AP


“I had no intention of being an actor,” Barry Humphries (February 17, 1934-April 22, 2023) told “Sunday Morning” in 2010. “I thought I was going to be a painter, or a lawyer, something like that. I drifted into the theater – I still do, every night I just drift into the theater. I drift across the stage and sometimes I say to the audience, ‘I’m making this up as I go along.’ And they laugh, but it’s true!”

The Australian comedian was best-known for the creation that overtook his life: Mrs. Norm Everage, a dowdy Melbourne housewife who would in time transform into the glamorous, globetrotting Dame Edna – international celebrity, talk show host, and ebullient fixture of show business for nearly seven decades.

Edna was born from a university skit, and to Humphries’ surprise (and, he says, annoyance), people loved her from the start. She hosted a U.K. TV show, “The Dame Edna Experience,” in which the fake interviewer talked with real celebrities like Sean Connery and Charlton Heston. Her 1992 autobiography became a bestseller … on non-fiction lists. Even the 1988 death of the fictional star’s fictional husband, Norm Everage, was reported by a real BBC newscaster. [A grieving Edna told reporters that she missed her husband, “early on, you know, for the first couple of hours.”]

Humphries, meanwhile, was relegated to being Edna’s “manager.” She described him as “a sad person … a failure. And he resents the fact that I’m so popular.”

Which had the sting of truth. Humphries, who was married four times, suffered from alcoholism and depression. He toured for as much as nine months out of the year, impacting his family. 

Humphries appeared in one-man shows around the world for more than 60 years, more times than not in drag, and in 1979 won an Olivier Award for best comedy performance for “A Night with Dame Edna.” Edna appeared on Broadway three times, and in 2000, Humphries won a Tony Award for his solo show, “Dame Edna: The Royal Tour.”

He also acted on stage and in films under his own name, including “Oliver!,” “Waiting for Godot,” “Bedazzled,” “The Getting of Wisdom,” “Spice World,” “Nicholas Nickleby,” and “Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie.” He wrote for the satirical magazine Private Eye, had a BBC series of his own, and voiced Bruce the shark in “Finding Nemo.”

And while he created other characters as well – Sir Les Patterson, an idiotic diplomat; Sandy Stone, “Australia’s most boring man” – Dame Edna was his most popular, cheerily greeting her audiences with “Hello, possums,” and tossing gladiolas from the stage. But she wasn’t averse to insult comedy. “Do you live on an unpaved road?” she once asked an audience member. “It looks like you tried to put your makeup on in the car.”

Never mind that Edna (whom Humphries said was inspired, in part, by his mother) could be very un-PC. Humphries was circumspect about how her humor would fly in the face of political correctness and puritanism. “Edna says what they dare not say; she speaks her mind. Her observations, very often quite prejudiced, are often quite acute,” he said.

Does she ever go too far? “Always,” he said, “but never to the point of alienating her audience, or hurting them.”

And though he accepted that his character was far more famous than the man who played her, he told “Sunday Morning” that there was an advantage to keeping his association with her: “It does mean I have to mention her name if I want to get a good table in a restaurant!”

Mary Quant

Mary Quant

Fashion designer Mary Quant (right) with models at London’s Heathrow Airport, March 18, 1968. | Express/Getty Images


The fashion icon whose styles epitomized the Swinging ’60s, British designer Dame Mary Quant (February 11, 1930-April 13, 2023) helped popularize (some say invented) the miniskirt, and the tights that went with it. Her sexy and fun dresses and accessories influenced youth culture around the world, shaping the look of the era. Her impact on fashion was, some said, as powerful as The Beatles’ impact on music – a palpable youthquake.

Opening in 1955, her Chelsea shop, Bazaar, attracted younger customers. “Snobbery has gone out of fashion, and in our shops you will find duchesses jostling with typists to buy the same dress,” Quant once said. She called the store “a sophisticated candy store for grown-ups.”

Though minidresses had been spotted on French runways in the early ’60s, Quant’s version introduced in 1966 – with hemlines up to 8 inches above the knee, and named after the British car, the Mini – proved a hit, in part because of their propensity to shock older tastes.

“It was the girls on King’s Road who invented the mini,” Quant said. “I was making clothes which would let you run and dance and we would make them the length the customer wanted. I wore them very short, and the customers would say, ‘shorter, shorter.'” Hot pants and micro-minis would follow.

An astute businesswoman, Quant branched out into other areas, such as cosmetics and kitchenware, to foster her brand.

Al Jaffee

MAD Reunion

Mad Magazine cartoonist Al Jaffee in 2011. | STEPHEN MORTON/AP;’ Mad Magazine


Mad magazine cartoonist Al Jaffee (March 13, 1921-April 10, 2023) was one of the humor publication’s longest-running contributors, satirizing politics and culture, and delighting readers with his Fold-Ins and “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions” until he retired, in 2020, at age 99.

The premise of his Fold-In (a spoof of a Playboy magazine foldout) was that a full-page illustration and text would be collapsed at its midpoint, providing a surprise image and caption. One early Fold-In depicted Republican presidential contenders Nelson Rockefeller and Barry Goldwater; when the page was collapsed, the image became Richard Nixon.

His parodies of advertisements included such future real-life products as automatic redialing for a telephone, a computer spell-checker, and graffiti-proof surfaces. He also anticipated peelable stamps, multiblade razors and self-extinguishing cigarettes.

In a 2016 interview with The Guardian, Jaffee said Mad magazine’s purpose was to expose “bloviators,” but not in a preachy way: “We think it’s kind of a public service. We don’t favor one particular politician over another, we’re just looking for the politician that’s trying to pull the wool over our eyes and just exaggerate what they’re saying and then it speaks for itself.”

As a teenager he’d settled in New York City, where he attended the High School of Music & Art. His schoolmates included future Mad editor Harvey Kurtzmann and future Mad illustrator Will Elder.

Before Mad, Jaffee drew for Stan Lee at Timely Comics (which became Marvel Comics), and for the New York Herald Tribune.

Various collections of Jaffee’s Fold-Ins have been published. And when Jon Stewart and his “Daily Show” writers put together the bestselling “America (The Book),” released in 2004, they asked Jaffee to contribute a Fold-In.

Michael Lerner

michael-lerner-barton-fink.jpg

Michael Lerner in “Barton Fink” (1991). | 20th Century Fox


Brooklyn-born character actor Michael Lerner (June 22, 1941-April 8, 2023) earned an Academy Award nomination for his blistering performance as a 1940s movie studio mogul in the Coen Brothers comedy “Barton Fink.”

Lerner began acting as a teenager, and played Willie Loman in “Death of a Salesman” while attending Brooklyn College. He received a Fulbright Scholarship and studied theater at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. For a time he shared an apartment with Yoko Ono, and appeared alongside John Lennon in Ono’s 1968 short film, “Smile.”

Moving to Los Angeles, Lerner was cast in TV (“MASH,” “The Brady Bunch,” “The Rockford Files”) and films (“Alex in Wonderland,” “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” “Eight Men Out”). He played Jack Ruby in the TV movie “Ruby and Oswald,” and Pierre Salinger in “The Missiles of October.”

In 2016 Lerner, who’d auditioned for Joel and Ethan Coen for “Miller’s Crossing,” recalled how he read for “Barton Fink,” for the role of studio head Jack Lipnick, a boisterous performance that, he said, was inspired by Preston Sturges movies: “So, I walked into the room, as the character, and I don’t say hello to anybody. And I sit down behind my desk and do this big speech: ‘Bart! Bart! So great to see you.’ I did the monologue the way I wanted to do it and I just walked out of the room and that was it. And Joel and Ethan were just sitting in a corner just laughing and laughing and that was it.”

Lerner said the Coens didn’t give him much acting direction and were “a little nervous that I was talking so fast,” but they let him do what he wanted.

Lerner also appeared in Eddie Murphy’s “Harlem Nights,” “Elf,” Woody Allen’s “Celebrity,” “Godzilla” (as Mayor Ebert), “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” and “Mirror Mirror.”

He said he never felt cheated by being known as a “character actor” rather than a leading man. In a 1999 interview with Cigar Aficionado, he said, simply, “Every role is a character role.”

Ben Ferencz

Ben Ferencz

Nuremberg prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz in 2014. / Getty Images


In 1947, at the age of 27, and with no previous trial experience, Harvard Law graduate Benjamin Ferencz (March 11, 1920-April 7, 2023), an investigator of Nazi war crimes against U.S. soldiers as part of a new War Crimes Section of the Judge Advocate’s Office, became chief prosecutor for a case in which 22 former Nazi commanders were tried for genocidal war crimes.

Born in Transylvania in 1920, Ferencz had immigrated as a very young boy with his Jewish parents to New York to escape rampant antisemitism. After Harvard, he joined the U.S. Army, taking part in the invasion of Normandy.

When U.S. intelligence reports described soldiers encountering large groups of starving people in Nazi camps watched over by SS guards, Ferencz followed up with visits, first at the Ohrdruf labor camp in Germany and then at the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp. At those camps and later others, he found bodies “piled up like cordwood” and “helpless skeletons with diarrhea, dysentery, typhus, TB, pneumonia, and other ailments, retching in their louse-ridden bunks or on the ground with only their pathetic eyes pleading for help,” Ferencz wrote in an account of his life.

“The Buchenwald concentration camp was a charnel house of indescribable horrors,” Ferencz wrote. “There is no doubt that I was indelibly traumatized by my experiences as a war crimes investigator of Nazi extermination centers. I still try not to talk or think about the details.”

Because of his experiences as a war crimes investigator, after the war he was recruited to help prosecute Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials. Twenty-two men – Einsatzgruppen commanders – were charged with murdering more than one million people, not in concentration camps, but in towns and villages across Eastern Europe. Rather than depending on witnesses, Ferencz mostly relied on official German documents to make his case. All the defendants were convicted, and more than a dozen were sentenced to death by hanging even though Ferencz hadn’t asked for the death penalty. 

“I will tell you something very profound, which I have learned after many years,” Ferencz told “60 Minutes” in 2017. “War makes murderers out of otherwise decent people. All wars, and all decent people.” 

Ferencz later worked for a consortium of Jewish charitable groups to help Holocaust survivors regain properties, homes, businesses, art works, Torah scrolls, and other Jewish religious items that had been confiscated from them by the Nazis.

He championed the creation of an international court which could prosecute any government’s leaders for war crimes. When the International Criminal Court in The Hague was created in 1998, Ferencz delivered the closing argument in the court’s first case.  

In 2008, in a foreword to the post-Iraq invasion book “George W. Bush: War Criminal?” Ferencz wrote, “The reputation of the United States has been soiled by its staunch opposition to the International Criminal Court and to allowing any international or foreign tribunal to try American nationals for aggression or any other war crimes.”

In 2021 he wrote “Parting Words: 9 Lessons for a Remarkable Life.” 

“I’m still in there fighting,” Ferencz, then age 97, told “60 Minutes.” “And you know what keeps me going? I know I’m right.”

Mark Russell

Political satirist Mark Russell at the Bakersfield Business Conference

Political satirist Mark Russell performs in Bakersfield, Calif., October 12, 2002. | Christopher Ruppel/Getty Images


An early lesson for comedian Mark Russell (August 23, 1932-March 30, 2023) was, “Don’t talk about politics or religion.” Lesson not learned! For more than 50 years, the Buffalo native and Washington institution was a satirist with a never-ending font of inspiration: politicians. Beginning as a nightclub entertainer at hotels and strip joints during the Eisenhower administration, Russell was a poke in the eye to politicos of all stripes, mocking power games and peccadilloes in the nation’s capital, and basically assuring all that no emperors ever wear clothes.

Richard Nixon may have been the gift that kept giving for comedians, but his resignation marked a sea change for Russell. “When Watergate was over,” he once said, “I had to go back to writing my own material.”

Beginning in the 1970s, with his nationally-televised comedy specials on PBS and a regular stint at Ford’s Theatre, Russell still had Ford and Carter and Reagan and Clinton and two Bushes to kick around. And he really had no shortage of material: he quipped that he had 535 writers, courtesy of the Congressional Record.

In 2001, following the inauguration of President George W. Bush, Russell shared his gimlet take on the transfer of party rule with “Sunday Morning”: “They say, ‘Well, we’re going to restore civility.’ Restore? What civility are they going to restore? I’ve lived here all my life. You want civility? Move to Finland!” 

Ryuichi Sakamoto

Ryuichi Sakamoto in concert in Madrid in 2002. | Carlos Muina/Cover/Getty Images

Ryuichi Sakamoto in concert in Madrid in 2002. | Carlos Muina/Cover/Getty Images


Musician and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto (January 17, 1952-March 28, 2023) was a pioneer of electronic music, who also became a familiar name from film scores, winning an Oscar and a Grammy for co-writing music for Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Last Emperor.”

Born in Tokyo, Sakamoto studied music beginning at age 10; his influences included Debussy and The Beatles. In the 1970s he co-founded the Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi. Their synth-pop and techno tracks, performed on ARP, Moog and Buchla synthesizers, became international hits, including “Computer Game/Firecracker,” “Technopolis,” “Rydeen” and “Cue.” The group released eight studio albums and 15 live albums between 1978 and 2015.

Sakamoto also released 22 solo albums, including “Thousand Knives,” “B-2 Unit,” “Esperanto,” “Futurista,” “Neo Geo,” “Beauty,” “Heartbeat,” “Sweet Revenge,” “Chasm,” and “Out of Noise.”

As an actor he starred opposite David Bowie in the 1983 film “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence,” for which Sakamoto wrote the music, including the title track. His other scores include “The Sheltering Sky,” “High Heels,” “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “Snake Eyes,” “Femme Fatale,” “Wuthering Heights,” “Little Buddha,” “The Revenant,” and the Oliver Stone TV series “Wild Palms.” He shared an Oscar, Grammy and Golden Globe for his “Last Emperor” score with his collaborators, David Byrne (of Talking Heads) and Cong Su.

A pacifist and environmental activist, Sakamoto spoke out against nuclear power following the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdowns in 2011 that were triggered by an earthquake and tsunami. His 2017 album, “Async,” features the frail and haunting sounds of a piano that had been damaged by floodwaters from the tsunami. “Of course, it was totally out of tune,” he told The New York Times, “but I thought it was beautiful. I thought: ‘Nature tuned it.'”

Battling cancer, in January Sakamoto released a full-length album, “12,” on his 71st birthday. He said in a statement that composing it had a “small healing effect on my damaged body and soul.”

Willis Reed

Center of Attention. New York Knicks Willis Reed (19) moves

New York Knicks center Willis Reed (19) moves against Wilt Chamberlain of the Los Angeles Lakers during the final game of the NBA Championship Series, May 8, 1970. | Dan Farrell/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images


And here comes Willis, and the crowd is going wild!”  An All-Star seven times over, the NBA’s Most Valuable Player in 1970, and a Hall of Fame inductee, New York Knicks center and captain Willis Reed (June 25, 1942-March 21, 2023) had sat out Game 6 of the 1970 NBA championship series against the Los Angeles Lakers due to a thigh muscle injury. When a seventh game was forced at Madison Square Garden, Knicks fans cheered when Reed was spotted coming towards the court.

Though working with a limp, Reed made two quick jump shots in the early minutes of the game, and an energized Knicks (including a blazing Walt Frazier, who scored 36 points with 19 assists) rolled over the Lakers 113-99, winning their first NBA title.

A native of Hico, Louisiana, Reed led Grambling State to three Southwestern Athletic Conference championships, and an NAIA title in 1961. A second-round draft pick for the Knicks in 1964, he was voted Rookie of the Year after scoring 1,560 points. Playing alongside such future Hall of Famers as Frazier, Bill Bradley and Dave DeBusschere, Reed would become the anchor of the Knicks in an era when they were one of basketball’s premier teams.

Injuries kept Reed off the court for much of the 1971-72 season, but the following year he led the Knicks to their second title. Described by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver as “the ultimate team player and consummate leader,” Reed would score more than 12,000 points and 8,400 rebounds over ten seasons, averaging 18.7 points and 12.9 rebounds per game.

Reed went on to coach the Knicks to a playoff berth in 1977-78, and also coached the New Jersey Nets and Creighton University. He later served as an executive for the Knicks, as senior vice president of basketball operations.

In 1996 Reed was named among the 50 greatest players in NBA history.

In 2016 he talked to The New York Times about walking into Madison Square Garden now: “When I walk in and see my number (19) hanging from the ceiling, that’s what I’m most proud of. I think to myself that all the hard work paid off.”

Lance Reddick

Actor Lance Reddick at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. | Jeff Vespa/Wireimage via Getty


Character actor Lance Reddick (June 7, 1962-March 17, 2023) specialized in playing intense authority figures on TV and in films. He was best known as Lt. Cedric Daniels on HBO’s “The Wire.”

A Yale School of Drama graduate, Reddick was also a musician, who studied classical composition at the Eastman School of Music. But his efforts to break into the music industry were coming up short, and his odd jobs landed him in bed with a back injury. That was when, he told Casting Frontier in a 2019 interview, it was time to think outside the box: “You know what? If I keep doing this, I’ll be doing this for the rest of my life,” he said. “I thought, ‘Well, I don’t have any money; I don’t have any connections. What do I have? … Well, I know I can sing, and I know I can act, ’cause I acted in college.

“‘Well, let me try that.'”

He started getting small parts on TV and in the theater, before landing the role of an undercover officer masquerading as a prison inmate in “Oz.” He would later star in the series “The Wire,” “Fringe” and “Lost.” He played Continental Hotel concierge Charon in the “John Wick” films, and earned a SAG Award nomination as part of the cast of “One Night in Miami.”

His other appearances include “The West Wing,” “CSI: Miami,” “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” “Intelligence,” “Corporate,” “American Horror Story,” “Bosch,” “Oldboy,” “I Dreamed of Africa,” “The Siege,” “Great Expectations,” and “Angel Has Fallen.” He also was a voice actor on such shows as “The Vindicators,” “Duck Tales,” “Castlevania” and “Rick and Morty,” and played characters in video games, including the “Destiny” series.

Still to be released are “White Men Can’t Jump,” “Shirley,” “Ballerina” (a spinoff from “John Wick”), and “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial.”

He released a jazz album, “Contemplations and Remembrances,” in 2011. “Growing up as a musician I was always awed by it, but I was scared of it,” he said in a 2010 interview with the Philadelphia Sunday Sun. “I always thought jazz musicians were in a special category. There were rock musicians, there were classical musicians, but the jazz musicians were the real cats. …

“As an actor, unless you reach a particular level of stardom, you always feel like just a glorified employee. I really wanted to create something that I felt that I controlled. Started doing the songwriting demo, never intending for it to become an album. I just kept writing and starting writing excessively and listening to different kinds of music. I wrote more and more songs and thought, ‘What the heck, I’ll just do it.'”

Pat Schroeder

Pat Schroeder

Rep. Pat Schroder (D-Colo.), who brought her daughter, Jamie, to the Capitol to protest cuts in federally-funded day care centers, April 10, 1973. | Bettmann via Getty Images


In 1972 Pat Schroeder (July 30, 1940-March 13, 2023) became the first woman elected to Congress from Colorado. During her tenure she fought for women’s and family rights, and for expanding the voices of women in government.

A graduate of Harvard Law, Schroeder worked for the National Labor Relations Board and Planned Parenthood, and was a teacher in Denver.

In 1998 she published “24 Years of Housework … and the Place Is Still a Mess,″ which chronicled the frustration she experienced with the men who dominated Washington, and of her quixotic entry into politics. She wrote that she was asked to partake of a “kamikaze run” in 1972, a year when Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern was deemed to have no coattails in her district. Her husband, a lawyer who himself had lost a state race, told her, “You probably can’t even win the primary. But if you don’t get in the race and articulate the issues, they will not be discussed. You think the government’s policies about Vietnam and the environment are wrongheaded, and you’re always urging your students to get involved. It’s an opportunity that may not come again.” But Schroeder was surprise winner of the primary, and went on to win the general. She would easily win reelection 11 times.

One of her biggest legislative victories was a family leave bill in 1993, which provided job protection to those caring for a newborn, sick child, or parent. She was also instrumental in laws that protected women from being fired because they had become pregnant, and that expanded roles for women in the military.

Schroeder became the first woman named to the House Armed Services Committee, but she was forced to share a chair with Rep. Ron Dellums, the first African American; Schroeder said the committee chairman, Louisiana Democrat F. Edward Hebert, thought the committee was no place for a woman or an African American, and so they were each worth half a seat.

She would use her wit to attack misogyny. When one congressman asked how she could be a House member and the mother of two small children at the same time, she replied, “I have a brain and a uterus, and I use both”; and she once chided Pentagon officials that if they were women, they would always be pregnant, because they never said “No.″ She also applied the phrase “Teflon president” to Ronald Reagan. And to illustrate her charge that lawmakers spent too much time courting special interests and campaign donations, she and several aides climbed the Capitol dome and hung a 15-foot red banner reading, “Sold,” as backdrop for a gathering of Republicans on the Capitol’s steps celebrating their first 100 days in power in 1994.

She blasted Speaker Newt Gingrich for suggesting women serving in combat would be prone to infections, and filed an ethics complaint over Gingrich’s televised college lecture series; he became the first speaker reprimanded by Congress.

“I was never a shrinking violet, but I don’t think I would ever have exposed myself to the travails of political life if I hadn’t been given last rites at age thirty, almost bleeding to death after giving birth to my daughter,” she wrote. “That little ceremony gets your attention!”

After Congress, Schroeder became a professor at Princeton University. She also headed the Association of American Publishers.

Chaim Topol

Topol In 'Fiddler On The Roof'

Topol as Tevye in the 1971 film version of “Fiddler on the Roof.” | Archive Photos/Getty Images


Chaim Topol (September 9, 1935-March 8, 2023) was one of Israel’s leading actors, who became synonymous with a single character: Tevye, the milkman, in the musical “Fiddler on the Roof.” He played the part more than 3,500 times on stages around the world, beginning when he was 30 (aided by heavy makeup), and most recently in 2009, when he was in his mid-70s. (He received a Tony Award nomination for appearing in a 1990 Broadway revival.) He also starred in the 1971 movie version, for which he earned a Golden Globe Award and a best actor Oscar nomination.

While in the Israeli Army in the 1950s, Topol joined a military theatrical troupe, and when his enlistment ended he helped found another theater company. It was while with another troupe that performed works by Shakespeare, Ionesco and Brecht that he became what he called “a serious actor.” He made a splash internationally as the lead in the 1964 satirical film “Sallah Shabati,” which told of the hardships facing Jewish immigrants. It was the first Israeli production to receive an Academy Award nomination for best foreign language film, and it earned Topol a Golden Globe for most promising newcomer. He later appeared in “Cast a Giant Shadow” (with Kirk Douglas), and “Before Winter Comes” (with David Niven and John Hurt).

He said his experience as a descendant of Russian Jews helped him in his performance as Tevye, a part he was originally not attracted to after seeing Zero Mostel perform on Broadway. “I really didn’t like it,” Topol told the Jerusalem Post in 2013, “because Zero, as much as he was a genius, was sometimes unfaithful to the text. He was a crazy guy. The music was lovely. But I thought, ‘It’s not for me.'”

He would change his mind after watching a Hebrew production of “Fiddler,” starring Shmuel Rodensky, when he realized “what an idiot I was, what a wonderful part this was, because Rodensky was very serious and he didn’t play for the comedy – mainly during the second half, which is very serious – and broke my heart.” Topol would later call Tevye “one of the best parts ever written for a male actor-singer.”

After playing Tevye in Israel, he was hired to star in the London production, though was asked to drop his first name (as being too difficult to pronounce). He later won the lead in Norman Jewison’s film version of “Fiddler on the Roof,” which received eight Academy Award nominations and won three Oscars.

Other movie credits include “The Private Eye,” “Galileo,” “Flash Gordon,” and the James Bond film “For Your Eyes Only.” He appeared in the TV mini-series “The Winds of War” and “War and Remembrance.”

In his later years he served as chairman of Jordan River Village, an overnight camp for Middle Eastern children with chronic or life-threatening illnesses that had partnered with Paul Newman’s Hole in the Wall Gang camps.

In 2015 he told the Associated Press that he preferred working with charities to chasing acting roles, and spoke of promoting coexistence at his village in northern Israel: “I can tell you that in our village Jews and Arabs and Christians and Muslims … are hugging each other, and it works very well when politicians are not involved,” he said.

But even without chasing roles, he will be forever recognized as Tevye. “How many people are known for one part? How many people in my profession are known worldwide?” he told the AP. “I’m not complaining.”

Traute Lafrenz

traute-lafrenz-c-1943.jpg

Traute Lafrenz, a member of the World War II resistance group, the White Rose. | File Photo


Traute Lafrenz (May 3, 1919-March 6, 2023) was the last known survivor of the White Rose, a group of students who resisted the Nazi regime in Germany during World War II. 

Born in Hamburg, Lafrenz moved to Munich to study medicine. There, she met Hans Scholl, one of a group of students who distributed leaflets opposing Hitler and Nazism. Hans and his sister, Sophie Scholl, were among those arrested and executed. Lafrenz was later arrested by the Gestapo in 1943, but hid her involvement with the White Rose, and received a one-year prison sentence. She was detained again at a prison in Bayreuth, and was awaiting trial when she was freed by American troops in April 1945, during the final days of the war.

She emigrated to the United States, completed her medical training in San Francisco, and married a doctor. She headed a school in Chicago, and retired in South Carolina.

On her 100th birthday Lafrenz was awarded Germany’s Order of Merit, citing her as one of the few who, “in the face of the crimes of national socialism, had the courage to listen to the voice of her conscience and rebel against the dictatorship and the genocide of the Jews. She is a heroine of freedom and humanity.”

Judy Heumann

Obit Judy Heumann

Disability rights activist Judy Heumann (center) is sworn in as U.S. Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Service, in Berkeley, Calif., June 29, 1993. | Susan Ragan/AP


The “mother of the disability rights movement,” Judy Heumann (December 18, 1947-March 4, 2023) lost her ability to walk at age 2 after contracting polio. She faced innumerable obstacles beginning in childhood, as when her parents tried to register her for kindergarten. The school denied her, claiming her wheelchair would create a fire hazard.

She grew up to become an activist who, through protests and legal actions, helped secure legislation protecting the rights of the disabled, including the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and the Rehabilitation Act.

She was featured in the Oscar-nominated 2020 documentary, “Crip Camp,” which highlighted Camp Jened, a summer camp in New York’s Catskills for people with disabilities, where Heumann was a counselor. The camp helped spark America’s disability rights movement.

During the 1970s she won a lawsuit against New York’s Board of Education, allowing her to work while using a wheelchair – becoming the first teacher in the state to do so. 

Heumann also founded a group called Disabled in Action, which conducted street demonstrations. In 1977, when the Carter administration was delaying the implementation of regulations that would protect the disabled, Heumann lead a sit-in with scores of disabled people (including some from Camp Jened) at a federal office building in San Francisco – an occupying force that a CBS News reporter at the time described as “protesters in wheelchairs, the lame, the palsied and the blind.” The sit-in would go on for weeks. Finally, Heumann and a small delegation traveled to Washington, D.C., to gain attention, hauled around town in the back of a truck. “It was very important for all of us that we wanted people to see us,” Heumann told “Sunday Morning” in 2021.

On the 23rd day of the San Francisco sit-in, the regulations were very quietly signed in Washington. Heumann told one gathering, “The Congress, the press, the American public have seen that we have stamina, strength and intelligence.” Their actions would help bring about passage of the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act.

Heumann served as assistant secretary of the U.S. Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services, from 1993 until 2001. She was also involved in passage of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified in 2008.

Wayne Shorter

Photo of Wayne Shorter

Jazz musician Wayne Shorter, c. 1962. | Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images


Jazz saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter (August 25, 1933-March 2, 2023) was a member of two of the most celebrated jazz groups of all time: Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, and the Miles Davis Quintet. He also co-founded the fusion band Weather Report, and composed such jazz standards as “Speak No Evil,” “Black Nile,” “Footprints,” and “Nefertiti.”

Growing up in Newark, New Jersey in the 1930s, he loved to draw comics, and would skip school to watch science-fiction films at a local theater. When he was caught, the vice principal forced him into a music class. “So, as I was walking away from her classroom, what was happening to me was what some people call life change,” Shorter told “CBS This Morning” in 2018.

In a career spanning nearly seven decades, Shorter would record more than 25 albums, winning 12 Grammys, mostly recently in February 2023 for best improvised jazz solo (“Endangered Species” with Leo Genovese). He received a lifetime Grammy Award in 2015.

He performed and recorded with such artists as Maynard Ferguson, Freddie Hubbard, Herbie Hancock, Joni Mitchell, Carlos Santana, Steely Dan, Norah Jones, and The Rolling Stones. His music has been performed by symphony orchestras in Chicago, Detroit, Lyon, Prague and Amsterdam. He also collaborated with Esperanza Spalding on an operatic work titled “(Iphigenia).”

Shorter was a Kennedy Center honoree in 2018. That year, he was asked by “CBS This Morning” why he loved jazz so much. He exclaimed, “Jazz is a fighter. The word jazz means to me, ‘I dare you. Let’s jump into the unknown!'”

Jean Faut

Chicago White Sox v Detroit Tigers

Jean Faut, a star player with the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League after World War II, waves to the crowd at Comerica Park in Detroit, Aug. 5, 2010. | Mark Cunningham/MLB Photos via Getty Images


A pitcher for the South Bend Blue Sox, one of the teams that made up the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during and after World War II, Jean Faut (January 17, 1925-February 28, 2023) was the league’s all-time ERA leader (1.23) after eight seasons, and was second in career wins (140). She also threw two no-hitters, as well as two perfect games – a feat no Major League Baseball pitcher ever matched. 

A Pennsylvania high school athlete with a strong arm, Faut pitched batting practice for the East Greenville Cubs, a semipro baseball team. A scout contacted her, and at age 21 Faut was recruited for the all-women’s baseball league. She married just before her second season started, and so she would juggle pitching and child-rearing as one of the league’s stars.

After five years, her place on the team was jeopardized when her husband, once a Philadelphia Phillies prospect, applied for and got the position of manager of the Blue Sox, without Faut knowing. It led to isolation from her teammates and friction with her husband. She retired in 1953, after leading the league in wins, strikeouts and ERA, and being named the league’s Player of the Year for the second time.

Faut later had a second child, divorced her husband, and remarried. She also competed in tournaments of the Professional Women’s Bowling Association. Among the jobs she held after her playing days was running the mosquito biology training program at the University of Notre Dame. 

Richard Belzer

Homicide: Life on the Street

Comedian-actor Richard Belzer as Detective John Munch, in a promotional photo for the series “Homicide: Life on the Street.” | Dave Bjerke/NBCUniversal via Getty Images


Comedian Richard Belzer (August 4, 1944-February 19, 2023) was long a mainstay of comedy clubs and cable specials, rising to become one of the top stand-ups of the ’70s and ’80s. Cynical, caustic and irreverent, he would engage with the audience, sometimes combatively. But beyond stand-up, he developed a separate persona as John Munch, a wise-cracking homicide detective prone to conspiracy theories, whom he portrayed in nearly a dozen different TV series, beginning in a 1993 episode of “Homicide: Life on the Street.” Over the next 23 years Munch would reappear in “The Wire,” “Law & Order,” “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” “Law and Order: Trial By Jury,” “The X-Files,” “The Beat,” “Arrested Development,” “30 Rock” and “Sesame Street.”

Belzer was brought in to read for the part of Munch after the executive producer of “Homicide,” Barry Levinson, heard the comedian on “The Howard Stern Show.” “The most difficult thing for me was to imagine myself as a detective,” Belzer told The Washington Post in 1994. “I had to figure out, how would I be a detective? How could that have happened in my life? I pretended my father was a detective who was killed in the line of duty and I wasn’t going to be a cop until he died. … I invented a past for myself.”

Born into an abusive household in Bridgeport, Connecticut (he was beaten by his mother; both parents died, his father by suicide, when Belzer was in his early 20s), he was expelled from college. After a series of jobs (including jewelry salesman, reporter, teacher and census taker), he landed a part in Channel One’s “Groove Tube,” a satire of television that co-starred Chevy Chase. The sketches, shot on video and presented off-Broadway, were later re-filmed and released as a movie. Belzer then landed at New York City’s Catch A Rising Star, becoming a regular and emcee. He served as the warm-up comic for “Saturday Night Live” when the series debuted, and went on to appear in and headline numerous TV specials. In 1984 he hosted the Cinemax talk show “The Richard Belzer Show.”

In addition to small roles in “Fame,” “Night Shift,” “Author! Author!,” “Scarface,” “Miami Vice,” “Fletch Lives,” “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” “Girl 6,” and “Species II,” among others, he’d also turn up as himself, in the Andy Kaufman biopic “Man on the Moon,” and “The Comedian.” Belzer wrote a quasi-self-help book, “How to Be a Stand-Up Comic,” and a novel, “I Am Not a Cop!” He also co-authored several books on conspiracy theories, from the Kennedy assassination to UFOs.

He settled a lawsuit with Hulk Hogan after the wrestler made an appearance in 1985 on Belzer’s cable talk show “Hot Properties.” To demonstrate a professional wrestling move, Hogan put the comedian in a headlock. Belzer fell unconscious, his head opening up on the studio floor. “A lot of people thought it was a stunt, but believe me, it wasn’t,” Belzer told the Post, explaining that with the settlement money he put a down payment on a house in France, which he cheekily dubbed the Hulk Hogan Arms.

Stella Stevens

Alfred Hitchcock Presents

Stella Stevens in a promotional photo for a 1960 episode of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” | CBS via Getty Images


Actress Stella Stevens (October 1, 1938-February 18, 2023) was a charmer whose lasting appeal was due to her deft balancing of her beauty and her light comic touch, perhaps no better employed than as the foil of the starry-eyed Jerry Lewis in the film “The Nutty Professor.” She was featured in numerous comedies in the 1960s and ’70s (winning a Golden Globe as New Star of the Year in 1960), but probably found her biggest audience as the bickering wife of Ernest Borgnine in the 1972 disaster film, “The Poseidon Adventure,” in which she performed many of her own stunts.

Born Estelle Caro Eggleston in Yazoo City, Mississippi, she married young and gave birth to son Andrew Stevens (who became an actor and producer) when she was 17. Two years later, she was divorced and began modeling and acting at Memphis State University, where she was spotted by a press agent at a performance of “Bus Stop.” She would go on to win roles in the musicals “Say One for Me” and “Li’l Abner,” and posed as a Playboy Playmate of the Month.

After some TV appearances (“Hawaiian Eye,” “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “Bonanza”), she starred in “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father” and the Elvis Presley picture “Girls! Girls! Girls!” Then came “The Nutty Professor,” playing student Stella Purdy, whom Lewis pines for, and tries to win over via the magic of chemistry, which transforms the nebbish into a suave man-about-town.

Other pictures included “The Secret of My Success,” “The Silencers,” “Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows,” “How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life,” Sam Peckinpah’s comic western “The Ballad of Cable Hogue,” and “Nickelodeon.” She was also featured in dramas, including John Cassavetes’ “Too Late Blues,” “Rage,” “The Mad Room,” and “A Town Called Hell.” She contributed to the blaxploitation genre, filming a love scene with Jim Brown in “Slaughter,” and fighting Tamara Dobson in “Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold.”

During the ’70s and ’80s she appeared frequently on TV, including the pilot for “Wonder Woman” opposite Lynda Carter, “Police Story,” “Hart to Hart,” “Flamingo Road,” “Matt Houston,” “The Love Boat,” “Fantasy Island,” “Night Court,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “Magnum, P.I.,” and “Santa Barbara.”

In 1979 Stevens directed a documentary, “The American Heroine,” which failed to win distribution. Ten years later, she directed her son in the romantic comedy “The Ranch.” 

Though she idolized Marilyn Monroe, she told Delta Magazine in 2010 that she didn’t want to imitate Monroe – she wanted to be herself. “I want to be remembered for whatever made people laugh the most,” she said. “I did like to make people laugh.”

Raquel Welch

Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C.

Raquel Welch starring in the 1966 film “One Million Years B.C.” | Hammer Films/20th Century Fox via Bettmann/Getty Images


When she was seven years old, Raquel Welch (September 5, 1940-February 15, 2023) had her first taste of acting on stage, playing a boy – an ironic introduction for an actress who would become internationally renowned as a leading sex symbol, applying her stunning beauty, a challenging self-confidence and a comic touch to performances on stage and screen.

Born of an Anglo mother and Bolivian father, Jo-Raquel Tejada was a beauty pageant winner, actress, dancer and San Diego TV news “weathergirl.” She was also a divorced mother of two young children when she met her second of four husbands, actor-turned-press agent Patrick Curtis, who helped shape her career. She had a flurry of guest roles in TV comedies (including “Bewitched” and “McHale’s Navy”), a bit part in the Elvis Presley film “Roustabout,” and a starring role opposite Marcello Mastroianni in the Italian “Shoot Loud, Louder… I Don’t Understand,” before starring in the sci-fi adventure “Fantastic Voyage,” playing a scientist shrunken and injected into a man’s bloodstream.

An even larger role came in the British dinosaur-and-caveman flick “One Million Years B.C.,” its poster and advertising images beckoning moviegoers with a provocative Welch clad in a deerskin bikini. She had virtually no lines, but didn’t need them to stun a global audience. As The New York Times opined, the film featured “a marvelous breathing monument to womankind named Raquel Welch.”

She became a phenomenon, gracing magazine covers and starring in a string of movies, from westerns (“Bandolero!,” “100 Rifles,” “Hannie Caulder”), thrillers ( “Fathom”), mysteries (“Lady in Cement,” “The Last of Sheila”), and the limited genre of roller derby films (“Kansas City Bomber”). She had a pronounced gift for comedy (“Bedazzled,” “The Magic Christian,” “Myra Breckinridge,” “Fuzz,” “Crossed Swords,” “Mother, Jugs & Speed,” “The Wild Party”), winning a Golden Globe for “The Three Musketeers.” She showcased her musical talents on TV alongside such glam stars as Tom Jones, Cher and Miss Piggy.

She won positive reviews when she replaced Lauren Bacall on Broadway in the musical “Woman of the Year,” and returned to the Great White Way for “Victor/Victoria” (this time playing a girl playing a boy playing a girl). On TV, she starred as the Latina Aunt Dora on PBS’ “American Family,” reclaiming part of her heritage (her father had banned speaking Spanish at home when she was growing up). She also got into a catfight with Julia Louis-Dreyfus on “Seinfeld.”

Welch also authored a bestselling book, starred in exercise videos, and helped raise millions for the American Cancer Society to buy wigs for cancer patients.

Burt Bacharach

Burt Bacharach

Burt Bacharach performs in Los Angeles c. 1968. | Martin Mills/Getty Images


The recipient of six Grammy Awards and three Oscars, songwriter, composer and pianist Burt Bacharach (May 12, 1928-February 8, 2023) helped create the soundtrack of several decades’ worth of pop hits, his musicianship drawing comparisons to Cole Porter. But he hadn’t even wanted to go into the music business. “I thought I’d probably wind up in the men’s clothing business,” he told “Sunday Morning” in 2002, “because I thought it was the easiest, most accessible job that my dad might be able to introduce me to.”

But then, after listening to the songs of the day, he decided that it would be easy to write them. “I mean, they were really ordinary, familiar. I thought this could be a snap. I was wrong! I did really, really bad!”

Having grown up influenced by both jazz and classical, Bacharach’s talent would be proven in creating melodies, though as a young man studying composition, he realized his peers favored an edgier, more dissonant sound. He told “60 Minutes” in 1999, “I had this one, the middle movement of this sonata, and I was almost ashamed to play it in class because it was so melodic, it really had a melody. And I kind of shuffled it through and played it, and he said … ‘Burt, don’t ever, ever feel ashamed of writing something that’s melodic, and that people can remember.'”

He was the orchestra leader for Marlene Dietrich’s cabaret shows, and wrote music for Broadway (“Promises, Promises”), and the movies (“Alfie,” “What’s New, Pussycat,” “Casino Royale,” “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “Arthur”). Bacharach’s songs, often written with longtime collaborator Hal David, were poignant, sometimes melancholic ballads about love and loss, and were consistent chart-toppers. His music was recorded by such artists as Nat King Cole, Perry Como, The Drifters, Cilla Black, Tom Jones, Dusty Springfield, Doris Day, Aretha Franklin, Luther Vandross, Carole Bayer Sager, Andy Williams, Roberta Flack, The 5th Dimension, Neil Diamond, Rod Stewart, Patti LaBelle, and Christopher Cross.

But the singer most closely tied to his work was Dionne Warwick. Their string of immortal hits included “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” “Don’t Make Me Over,” “Wishin’ and Hopin’,” “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” “Walk On By,” “A House Is Not a Home,” “You’ll Never Get to Heaven (If You Break My Heart),” “I Say a Little Prayer,” and “Do You Know the Way to San Jose.”

By the mid-seventies Bacharach’s music faded somewhat, as pop became harder, and his smooth melodies and lush, often quirky arrangements seemed stuck in the sixties. But then, who better to capture the era of Swinging London in the “Austin Powers” films? Bacharach appeared as himself in comedian Mike Myers’ first James Bond spoof, performing “What the World Needs Now Is Love,” and returned for the sequels.

Back in the public eye, he was soon back on the pop charts, thanks to an unlikely partner, British punk rocker Elvis Costello. After the two teamed on a song for the film “Grace of My Heart,” they collaborated on the album “Painted From Memory,” which featured “I Still Have That Other Girl,” earning the pair a Grammy for best pop collaboration with vocals.

A lesson in Bacharach’s innovation – and his singular knack for melody – could be heard in his story, told to “60 Minutes,” about the trouble he had with musicians performing one song, sung by Warwick: “I remember having a huge fight with the band at the Apollo, ’cause she was singing ‘Anyone Who Had a Heart,’ and that changes time signature every bar. They didn’t know why I’d done it. And I’m saying, ‘Listen, here’s the thing: the record’s a Top 10, so people are reacting to it. It’s Top 10 in the country; people are getting it, and they’re not trying to count it. Why don’t you guys just try to, instead of reading what’s on the paper, just feel it in your heart?'”

Bobby Hull

Bobby Hull On The Ice

Bobby Hull of the Chicago Blackhawks on the ice in the 1960s. | Bruce Bennett Studios via Getty Images Studios


Hall of Famer and two-time MVP Bobby Hull (January 3, 1939-January 30, 2023) helped the Chicago Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup in 1961. One of the most prolific forwards in NHL history, he scored 610 times during his 16-year career with Chicago, Hartford and Winnipeg. Nicknamed “The Golden Jet” for his speed and blond hair, he also collected 303 goals while playing for the Jets in the World Hockey Association for seven seasons, having been lured away from the NHL with hockey’s first $1 million contract.

Hull was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1983, and his No. 9 sweater was retired by the Blackhawks that same year.

In 1965 Hull talked with Sports Illustrated about his intuitions on how a game might turn out: “There are nights when I can tell long before a game how it is going to go. When you first go out onto the ice in the warmup you can tell. If your legs feel light you kind of smile to yourself and you take great joy in skating around and getting warm. When I go back down into the dressing room 15 minutes before the game I often say to Dennis [Hull, his brother and teammate], ‘I feel he’s got it tonight; I feel he’s got it tonight.’ Dennis laughs and sometimes he kids me by sending the word down the line: ‘The Rolls-Royce is going to roll tonight.'”

Lisa Loring

THE ADDAMS FAMILY

Lisa Loring as Wednesday Addams (with Ted Cassidy as Lurch) in the 1960s comedy series “The Addams Family.” | ABC Photo Archives via Getty Images


Lisa Loring (February 16, 1958-January 28, 2023) was a child actor (“Dr. Kildare”) and model when, at the age of five, she was cast as Wednesday Addams in the 1960s sitcom “The Addams Family.” Inspired by Charles Addams’ gruesomely hilarious cartoons of a sinister family living in a Gothic mansion, Wednesday was the young girl who played with a headless doll and kept a black widow spider as a pet. She also had some funky dance moves.

Loring told the Sydney Morning Herald in 2017 that, when auditioning, she topped actresses much older than she was for the role (it helped that she resembled Carolyn Jones, who played her mother, Morticia), but didn’t have a problem learning her lines: “I learned to memorize before I could read.”

Her life beyond “Addams Family” was certainly colorful. After her mother died, she married at age 15 – it was the first of four marriages (one of her husbands performed in porn films). She continued acting, on the soap opera “As the World Turns,” in guest appearances on “Fantasy Island” and “Barnaby Jones,” and in genre films, such as “Blood Frenzy,” “Savage Harbor” and “Doctor Spine.” And she’d appear at conventions, where she’d autograph pictures of her five-year-old self. 

Tom Verlaine

Tom Verlaine

Tom Verlaine of Television performs at Hammersmith Odeon, London, April 16, 1978. | Gus Stewart/Redferns via Getty Images


Guitarist Tom Verlaine (December 13, 1949-January 28, 2023) became a fixture of the downtown New York music venue CBGB, where he performed alongside such acts as the Ramones, Patti Smith and Talking Heads, including as part of the proto-punk band, Television, which he co-founded.

Television’s groundbreaking debut album “Marquee Moon” (1977) included a nearly 11-minute title track and “Elevation.” The band broke up the following year, after the release of their second album, “Adventure.” Verlaine was part of the lineup when the band reformed in the mid-’90s (when they released their third album), and again in 2001. Verlaine also went on to release ten albums of his own, his most successful being 1981’s “Dreamtime.”

His influences were less rock ‘n’ roll and more jazz and avant-garde concert composers (like Ligeti and Penderecki). Though he had a low professional profile, his guitar shredding and improvisations produced a unique sound (what Smith once described as “like a thousand bluebirds screaming”) that influenced such performers as Michael Stipe and Flea.

In 2006 Verlaine, described by The New York Times as a “guitar god,” explained to the paper why he hadn’t pursued more commercial success: “When I first started touring, having to get up at 7 a.m. to get on buses or go to airports after playing all night, I thought: ‘This is terrible. This is not what music is about.’ It dawned on me that I had to make a decision: Am I going to go along with this whole thing or not? I just said, nah. I decided against the whole ‘careering’ thing.”

Billy Packer

Big East Men's Basketball Tournament - Semifinals

College basketball announcer Billy Packer in 1991. | Mitchell Layton/Getty Images


Emmy Award-winning college basketball broadcaster Billy Packer (February 25, 1940-January 26, 2023) worked as an analyst and color commentator on every Final Four for 34 years beginning in 1975, for NBC and CBS.

Packer, who played three seasons at Wake Forest, and helped lead the Demon Deacons to the college tournament in 1962; 13 years later he was in the broadcast booth. He joined CBS in 1981, and was the network’s main analyst until the 2008 Final Four. That year he was inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.

In 2007 he told CBS Sports, “I had a chance to play in a Final Four way back in 1962 in San Diego, and about the only people who knew about it were the people from the various schools that were in it, and a few people in San Diego. But from a national perspective it was nothing like it became, even when I started broadcasting. Of course, now it’s become kind of a ritual, the month of March, for America.”

David Crosby

David Crosby, Portrait

A portrait of David Crosby c. 1974. | Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images


In 2008 singer-songwriter-guitarist David Crosby (August 14, 1941-January 18, 2023) told “Sunday Morning” a key to understanding the power and longevity of his music: “The best songs take you a while to digest, and no two people get exactly the same picture from them because they incite a little fire. They ignite a little fire in your imagination.”

Since the 1960s, Crosby has fired up lots of imaginations. Crosby dropped out of college to pursue his passion for music, and in 1964 he joined The Byrds, but his stint with the band came to an unhappy end, when he was thrown out. “I wasn’t that easy to handle,” he said. “I had a big ego, and I wanted them to play my songs. I was starting to write pretty good songs.”

He’d performed with Buffalo Springfield, before teaming with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash (and, for a time, Neil Young), to record some of the most essential music of the era, including the albums “Crosby, Stills & Nash” (1969), “Déjà Vu” (1970), the live album “4 Way Street” (1971), and “CSN” (1977).  When Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young started touring in the summer of ’69, the second gig they ever played was a little gathering called Woodstock.

The production of “Déjà Vu” came at a particularly fraught time for each of the band’s members. For Crosby, his girlfriend, Christine Hinton, had been killed in a car crash. “I was in terrible shape,” Crosby told Anthony Mason in 2021. “I was damn near destroyed. I’m just really lucky we were making that record, because it gave me a raison d’être … It’s what kept me alive.”

Crosby would record 17 studio albums with The Byrds, CS&N and others. He also released eight solo studio albums, including 1971’s “If I Could Only Remember My Name.” Among the songs for which Crosby is credited as writer or co-writer are “Renaissance Fair,” “Everybody’s Been Burned,” “Wooden Ships,” “Long Time Gone,” “Déjà Vu,” “Guinnevere,” “Almost Cut My Hair,” “Long Time Gone,” and “Laughing.”

In the 1980s addiction led to drug charges and a year-and-a-half in prison, during which he went cold turkey, and came out vowing to remain sober. In later years he received a liver transplant and underwent heart surgery. But he also recorded four albums as part of the trio CPR (in which he performed with session guitarist Jeff Pevar, and keyboardist James Raymond, a child he’d had out of wedlock and given up for adoption in 1962, with whom he’d reunited).

In 2000 it was revealed that Crosby was the father (via artificial insemination) of two children Melissa Etheridge shared with her then-partner Julie Cypher. 

Lloyd Morrisett

Lloyd Morrisett

2019 Kennedy Center honoree Lloyd Morrisett, the co-founder of “Sesame Street.” | Greg Allen/Invision/AP


Lloyd Morrisett (November 2, 1929-January 15, 2023), who had trained to be a teacher with a background in psychology, and who earned his doctorate in experimental psychology at Yale University, was looking for new ways to educate children from less-advantaged backgrounds.

In 1966, at a dinner party with documentary producer Joan Ganz Cooney, Morrisett asked her, “Joan, do you think television could be used to teach young children?” Their conversations about the possibilities led to the founding of the Children’s Television Workshop, and their marquee production, “Sesame Street,”

Morrisett and Cooney worked with Harvard University developmental psychologist Gerald Lesser to build the show’s unique approach to teaching, featuring a culturally-diverse cast, augmented with Jim Henson’s lovable Muppets. Since its 1969 debut, “Sesame Street” has won 216 Emmys, 11 Grammys, and the Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime artistic achievement – the first television program to receive the award. The series is shown in more than 150 countries, reaching 120 million children. 

Lisa Marie Presley

Lisa Marie Presley working on her debut album

Singer Lisa Marie Presley recording her debut album, “To Whom It May Concern.” | Mirek Towski/FilmMagic via Getty Images


The only child of Elvis Presley, Lisa Marie Presley (February 1, 1968-January 12, 2023) lived with her mother, actress Priscilla Presley, after her parents split up in 1973, when Lisa Marie was four. But she remembered her father during frequent visits to Graceland, including when he’d make his entrances. “He was always fully, fully geared up,” she told The Associated Press in 2012. “You’d never see him in his pajamas coming down the steps, ever. You’d never see him in anything but ‘ready to be seen’ attire.”

Lisa Marie was just nine when Elvis died, but he loomed large over her life, as she embarked on a career as a singer-songwriter, even mixing her voice with his in a video of his 1969 ballad, “Don’t Cry Daddy.” She performed on stage with such artists as Pat Benatar and Richard Hawley, and recorded three albums, two of which – “To Whom It May Concern” and “Now What” – hit Billboard’s Top 10.

Lisa Marie’s personal life was rocky: four marriages (including to Michael Jackson and Nicolas Cage), struggles with drugs, custody battles and financial hardships. One of her sons, Benjamin Storm Presley Keough, died by suicide in 2020.

The sole heir of the Elvis Presley Trust after her father died, she sold her majority interest in the trust in 2005, but retained ownership of Graceland Mansion, its contents, and the 13 acres surrounding it.

In 2012 she told the AP, “I’m proud to be my father’s daughter … I do feel honored about that.”

Robbie Bachman

Bachman Turner Overdrive Live At Fillmore East

Drummer Robbie Bachman, of Bachman-Turner Overdrive, performs at the New Fillmore East in New York, December 1974. | Fin Costello/Redferns via Getty Images


Robbie Bachman (February 18, 1953-January 12, 2023) was drummer for the Canadian hard rock band Bachman-Turner Overdrive, whose hits in the 1970s included “Takin’ Care of Business” and “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet.”

Robbie and his brothers, Randy and Tim, were Winnipeg natives who’d played music since childhood. After Randy abruptly left The Guess Who following their success with “American Woman,” the three Bachmans teamed up for the group Brave Belt, joined by bassist/vocalist Fred Turner. Brave Belt would eventually morph into Bachman-Turner Overdrive (the word “Overdrive” pinched from the cover of a trucker magazine).

Between 1973 and 1979 the group released eight albums, including “Not Fragile” and “Four Wheel Drive” (which both hit #1 on the Billboard chart), “Head On,” and their eponymous debut album.

In addition to “Takin’ Care of Business” and “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet,” BTO’s Top 20 hits included “Let It Ride,” “Roll On Down the Highway,” “Hey You,” “Quick Change Artist,” and “Down to the Line.”

In 1980, a few years after Randy left the group, BTO broke up. The brothers rarely performed together afterwards.

In 2014, when BTO was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, Robbie explained the music’s appeal, and what differentiated it from other rock at the time, to the Toronto Star: “We didn’t tell anybody they were wrong or anything was bad or don’t do this. It was basically, have a good time, fun music. … Just coming out of the ’70s with the Vietnam War and all the political things going on — in Canada with Trudeau, and Richard Nixon and stuff like that — we just basically had enough of that stuff.”

Jeff Beck

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Guitarist Jeff Beck. | Ed Spinelli for CBS News


As a member of The Yardbirds and later as a solo artist, guitar virtuoso Jeff Beck (June 24, 1944-January 10, 2023) pushed the boundaries of rock ‘n’ roll, incorporating jazz, funk, blues and opera into his music, which was improvisational — and inspirational to generations of guitar shredders.

He performed with artists as varied as Jimi Hendrix, Brian Wilson, Stevie Wonder, Cyndi Lauper, Wynonna Judd, Rod Stewart and Luciano Pavarotti. He recorded 17 albums, including “Truth,” “Beck-Ola,” “Jeff Beck Group,” “Beck, Bogert & Appice,” “Blow by Blow,” “Wired,” “There & Back,” “Emotion & Commotion,” and “18.” As a guest artist he performed on numerous recordings, including by Tina Turner (“Private Dancer”), Mick Jagger (“She’s the Boss”), Diana Ross (“Swept Away”), ZZ Top (“Hey Mr. Millionaire”), and Ozzy Osbourne (“Patient Number 0”).

Beck won eight Grammy Awards, and was twice inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (as a member of the Yardbirds, and as a solo act).

Russell Banks

Russell Banks Portrait Session

A portrait of writer Russell Banks in Paris, April 12, 1991. | Ulf Andersen/Getty Images


The son of a New Hampshire plumber, novelist Russell Banks (March 28, 1940-January 7, 2023) often wrote, in such acclaimed works as “Affliction,” “The Sweet Hereafter” and “Continental Drift,” about the world of trailer parks and debt-plagued people barely hanging on – “People who perceive themselves and are pretty much perceived as outside the mainstream wanting to get in or, having failed that, trying to figure out how to live outside,” he told “Sunday Morning” in 1995.

A professor emeritus at Princeton University, Banks was raised in the Northeast, and lived near the burial ground of abolitionist John Brown, in North Elba, New York. He told the Associated Press in 1998 of walking past his grave often enough that Brown “became a kind of ghostly presence” – the subject of his ambitious 1998 novel, “Cloudsplitter,” a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Beginning with his 1975 “Family Life,” Banks penned 14 novels, including “Rule of the Bone,” “The Darling,” and his last, 2022’s “The Magic Kingdom.” He also wrote short story collections and nonfiction.

A moralist writing about the marginalized, Banks said of his work, “I’m operating out of a belief that all lives are interconnected and that we’re all implicated in each other’s fates in significant ways and bear terrible responsibilities toward and for each other, most of which we abandon and run from. But I believe it.”

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Phish bassist Mike Gordon, Lauren Daigle, Michael

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Here are three new albums worth spinning this week:

“Flying Games,” Mike Gordon

The fabulous Phish bassist releases his sixth solo album, which runs like an antelope through 13 tracks that blend folk and funk, disco and dancehall, new wave and new ideas. It only rarely sounds reminiscent of Gordon’s famed Vermont quartet — aka, the greatest jam band on the planet — but it does contain plenty of the adventurous spirit and sense of humor that Phish is well known for. “Flying Games” features contributions from drummer John Kimock, keyboardist Robert Walter, percussionist Craig Myers and guitarist/pedal-steel player Scott Murawski, among others.

“Lauren Daigle,” Lauren Daigle

The amazing pop vocalist is back with her long-awaited fourth full-length studio album, a self-titled outing that follows the platinum-selling success of 2018’s “Look Up Child.” The eponymous affair is just jampacked with great songs, including the chart-topping lead single, “Thank God I Do,” and the nicely soulful “New.”

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Notable Deaths in 2023

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Tina Turner Performs At Wembley Arena In 1985

Tina Turner on stage at Webley Arena in London during her 1985 “Private Dancer” tour. | Pete Still/Redferns via Getty Images


A look back at the esteemed personalities who left us this year, who’d touched us with their innovation, creativity and humanity.

By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan. The Associated Press contributed to this gallery.


Singer Tina Turner (November 26, 1939-May 24, 2023) had a smoldering voice and aggressive dance moves that powered a five-decade career as one of the biggest stars in rock music. She sold more than 200 million records, including such classics as “Proud Mary,” “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” “Private Dancer,” and “We Don’t Need Another Hero.”

“I had the strange voice that most girl singers didn’t have,” she admitted to “Sunday Morning” in 2018. “Deep, like now, and even it goes deeper,” she said. But at the beginning she didn’t like her voice: “I thought it was kind of ugly because it didn’t sound like Diana Ross. But then afterwards I thought, ‘Yeah, it sounds like the guys.'”

Born in Nutbush, Tennessee, Anna Mae Bullock – a tomboy from a broken home – saw Ike Turner perform at a St. Louis nightclub. She had conflicting reactions: “I thought he was the ugliest person I’d ever seen,” she told “Sunday Morning.” “But he had a presence. And then I watched him when he got on stage and he started. I thought, ‘Oh, wow, I wanna sing with that band!'”

And when her voice was tracked on a demo recording of “A Fool in Love,” it made its way to the president of Sue Records, who convinced Ike to put the dancer up front. The Ike & Tina Turner Revue became one of the most successful acts of the late ’60s and ’70s, opening for the Rolling Stones in 1966 and 1969, and producing such hits as “A Fool in Love,” “It’s Going to Work Out Fine,” “Poor Fool,” “River Deep – Mountain High,” “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long,” “Come Together,” “I Want to Take You Higher,” and “Proud Mary,” their highest-charted song.

Ike controlled all aspects of the Revue (not least of which he picked out her stage name, Tina) and was physically and emotionally abusive. He forced her to perform even when she suffered with bronchitis, pneumonia, and a collapsed right lung. “He was cruel because he depended on me,” Tina said. “He didn’t like that he had had to depend on me. And I didn’t want to start a fight because it was always a black eye, a broken nose, a busted lip, a rib.”

She credited her emerging Buddhist faith in the mid-1970s with giving her a sense of strength and self-worth. She finally left him in early July 1976, sneaking out of a Dallas hotel room while Ike slept, with only a Mobil credit card and 36 cents. “I felt that I’ve had enough, just enough, enough. Now it’s time to go out the door. I had nothing. I had absolutely nothing. Thirty-six cents, that was all.”

Physically battered, emotionally devastated and financially ruined, Turner strove to remake herself as a solo artist. Though her first album flopped, she performed with other rock stars who helped bring her into the spotlight again. Rod Stewart convinced her to sing “Hot Legs” with him on “Saturday Night Live,” and Jagger sang “Honky Tonk Women” with her during the Stones’ 1981-82 tour.

Her album “Private Dancer,” released in May 1984, sold more than eight million copies and featured several hit singles, including the title track, “Better Be Good To Me,” and “What’s Love Got To Do With It,” a song she’d originally turned down. But she went into the studio and “applied my voice.” At age 44, Tina Turner had her first #1 single. It would become her signature song, and a Grammy-winner for Record of the Year.

Her 1986 memoir “I, Tina,” expanded in grisly detail the horrors of her former husband’s abuse. [Ike, who did not deny mistreating her, died in 2007.] Speaking out candidly about suffering from domestic abuse, Turner became a heroine to battered women, and a symbol of resilience. The story of her suffering behind the scenes was dramatized in the 1993 film “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” starring Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne (both of whom were Oscar-nominated).

She was voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 with Ike (and again, on her own, in 2021), and was a Kennedy Center Honoree in 2005.

Turner performed her last tour in 2007, and settled into retirement in Switzerland. In her later years she endured a stroke, intestinal cancer, kidney failure (her second husband, Erwin Bach, donated one of his to her), and the death by suicide of her 59-year-old son, Craig Turner. She was executive producer of the 2019 Broadway musical “Tina,” which earned its star, Adrienne Warren, a Tony Award for her physically-demanding performance.

When asked if there is anything more in life that she wanted, Turner told “Sunday Morning,” “No. I have everything. When I sit at the Lake Zurich in the house that I have, I am so serene. No problems. I had a very hard life. But I didn’t put blame on anything or anyone. I got through it, I lived through it with no blame. And I’m a happy person.”

Vida Blue

New York Yankees v Oakland Athletics

Pitcher Vida Blue of the Oakland Athletics pitches against the New York Yankees in August 1969 at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. | Focus On Sport/Getty Images


Pitcher Vida Blue (July 28, 1949-May 6, 2023) was one of baseball’s leading lights in the early 1970s. A six-time All-Star, Blue helped pitch the Oakland Athletics to three consecutive World Series titles, from 1972-74. (Only the 1998-2000 New York Yankees have repeated that accomplishment.)

Called up before his 20th birthday, in 1970 he became the fourth-youngest player in history to throw a no-hitter, at age 21. Blue was voted the 1971 American League Cy Young Award winner and the league’s Most Valuable Player after going 24-8 with a 1.82 ERA and 301 strikeouts. He recorded 24 complete games, including eight shutouts. But, with a salary of only $14,000, Blue was called “the most underpaid player in baseball” by President Richard Nixon.

Blue clashed publicly with A’s owner Charlie O. Finley, and was traded twice, only to be blocked each time by baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn.

In 2013 Blue (one of the first players to bring an attorney to the negotiating table) talked with CBS News Radio about the business of baseball: “The owners are real savvy in how they sign players, and players are real savvy in how they, you know, approach getting their raises,” he said.

“It’s cruel sometimes. Fans may not understand it. But owners and general managers, that’s how they make their living through the business of baseball.”

His career was derailed by drug problems; in 1983 Blue was released by the Royals and ordered to serve three months in federal prison and fined $5,000 for misdemeanor possession of approximately a tenth of an ounce of cocaine. He returned to baseball in 1985 for two seasons with the Giants.

Blue finished with a 209-161 record, with a 3.27 ERA, 2,175 strikeouts, 143 complete games and 37 shutouts over 17 seasons with Oakland, San Francisco and Kansas City.

“It tarnished my image,” Blue told the Washington Post in 2021. “Not that I was squeaky clean. I didn’t have a halo and [stuff], but I had a reputation of being a respectable, reputable person. I worked my tail off to polish that image back up and renew the name Vida Blue Jr. But it’s a constant battle to do that every day.” 

Gordon Lightfoot

Gordon Lightfoot Performs In Concert

Canadian folk-rock singer and songwriter Gordon Lightfoot performs on the 1970s TV series “Midnight Special.” | Fotos International/Getty Images


Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot (November 17, 1938-May 1, 2023) sang of lives lost in shipwrecks and love gone bad. Considered one of the most renowned voices to emerge from Toronto’s Yorkville folk club scene in the 1960s, it was in his hometown of Orelia that Lightfoot remembers singing for his first audience, standing on his grandmother’s kitchen table. “I remember the applause,” he said.

He grew up performing in church choirs and barber shop quartets. In 1958, he made a bold move: heading to Los Angeles to study music. His big break came in 1965, when Peter, Paul and Mary recorded his song, “For Lovin’ Me.”

Lightfoot went on to record 20 studio albums. He penned hundreds of songs, including “Carefree Highway” and “Sundown,” many of which were recorded by a galaxy of stars, from Barbra Streisand, Harry Belafonte, Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan, to The Grateful Dead, Elvis Presley, Jane’s Addiction and Sarah McLachlan.

Most of his songs were deeply autobiographical, with lyrics that probed his own experiences in a frank manner, and explored issues surrounding the Canadian national identity. “If You Could Read My Mind,” followed the breakup of his first marriage. “Early Morning Rain” was sparked by homesickness. His chart-topping “Sundown” was a chronicle of infidelity. His 1975 song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” was inspired by a Great Lakes ore freighter meeting disaster. “Newsweek magazine gave about a half a page and a little tiny photograph about this big. And I said, ‘That’s not good enough for this type of thing to go by totally unnoticed.'”

Other hits included “I’m Not Sayin’,” “Ribbon of Darkness,” “You Are What I Am,” “Rainy Day People,” and “The Circle Is Small (I Can See It in Your Eyes).” Perhaps no Lightfoot song was more Canadian than 1966’s “Canadian Railroad Trilogy,” which chronicled the building of the trans-Canada railroad.

Unlike others who found success in the United States and stayed, Lightfoot returned to his homeland, a matter of pride in Canada, where he wound up on a postage stamp. And even into his 70s he was still touring. “When you walk out in front of a crowd, you really got to give it everything – never less than what they expect from you,” he told “Sunday Morning” in 2013. 

Jerry Springer

Jerry Springer Gesturing While Taping His Show

Talk show host Jerry Springer in an undated photo. | © Ralf-Finn Hestoft/Corbis via Getty Images


The one-time news anchor and mayor of Cincinnati in the late 1970s, Jerry Springer (February 13, 1944-April 27, 2023) became a household name as host of the controversial and contentious syndicated television show which showcased homewreckers, strippers, and violent on-air brawls for 27 colorful seasons, until 2018. It held the honors of both topping Oprah Winfrey’s show in the ratings, and being proclaimed by TV Guide “the worst TV show ever.”

Born to German Jewish immigrants in an underground bomb shelter in London during World War II, Springer came to U.S. at age five. He studied political science at Tulane University and got a law degree from Northwestern. He entered the political arena as an aide in Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign. Working for a Cincinnati law firm, Springer ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1970, before being elected to city council in 1971. He abruptly resigned in 1974, later admitting it was due to an investigation into his having solicited prostitutes. (He’d paid them with personal checks.)

But he quickly bounced back, winning a council seat in 1975 and serving as mayor in 1977. He later became a local TV politics reporter.

Springer began his talk show in 1991 in a more traditional format, but two years later, it got a sleazy makeover.

In the late 1990s Springer offered a defense for the obscenity-laced content he broadcast. “Look, television does not and must not create values, it’s merely a picture of all that’s out there – the good, the bad, the ugly … Believe this: The politicians and companies that seek to control what each of us may watch are a far greater danger to America and our treasured freedom than any of our guests ever were or could be.” He added that his guests volunteered to be on the show, and consequently volunteered to be subjected to ridicule or humiliation for their misbehavior.

And there was a lot of it: Porn stars, teenage adulterers, abusive lovers, cheating newlyweds, a man “married” to a horse, and someone described as a “kung fu hillbilly.”

And it wasn’t all escapist entertainment. In 2002 a man was convicted of killing his ex-wife, and of violating a domestic violence order, just weeks after they and another woman (whom he’d secretly married) were featured on a “Jerry Springer” episode about love triangles.

Springer used his celebrity to headline a liberal radio talk show, host “America’s Got Talent,” compete on “Dancing With the Stars,” and star in the nationally-syndicated “Judge Jerry.”

“With all the joking I do with the show, I’m fully aware and thank God every day that my life has taken this incredible turn because of this silly show,” Springer told the Cincinnati Enquirer in 2011.

Later, in his Twitter biography, Springer would describe himself as a “ringmaster of civilization’s end.”

Harry Belafonte

Harry Belafonte

Harry Belafonte in a recording studio, circa 1957. | Pictorial Parade/Getty Images


Blessed with a movie star’s good looks, an activist’s anger, and a voice that told songs of struggle, loss and sweet memory, Harry Belafonte (March 1, 1927-April 25, 2023) moved generations with both his rhythm and his rage, catching the social conscience of the nation as he caught their ear with such hits as “Day-O,” “Matilda,” and “Jamaica Farewell.”

The first artist to sell a million albums with the 1956 release of “Calypso,” Belafonte would go on to become an EGOT winner (earning an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony), a Kennedy Center Honoree, and a recipient of the National Medal of Arts. But his influence would become even more pronounced as an advocate for social justice at home and abroad, serving as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. He supported efforts for education, the eradication of nuclear weapons, and the fight against HIV/AIDS and apartheid.

Born in New York City to immigrant parents from the Caribbean, Belafonte said that as a child they were so poor his mother, a domestic worker, sent him and his brother to live for years in her native Jamaica. Growing up, he wrote in his memoir “My Song,” poverty was a constant companion. “It still nourishes my thinking,” he told “Sunday Morning” in 2011. “It still nourishes my passion.”

He returned to New York and, at age 17 and a high school dropout, Belafonte joined the Navy to fight in World War II. “Took me out of the rough-and-tough of the streets of Harlem and it gave me an environment where things were disciplined,” he said. “There was an objective. There was a purpose. There was an enemy.”

But his hopes that the discrimination he experienced as a Black man would end with the war were dashed: “I came back home to find out that nothing had changed. Black people were still being lynched, were still being denied. We were still being cruelly relegated to second-class experiences.”

Working as a janitor in a Harlem apartment building, he was given tickets by a tenant to the theater, which he had never attended. “It was an epiphany; something so inordinately powerful just sucked me in.” He began taking acting classes, with a bunch of misfits: Marlon Brando, Walter Matthau, Bea Arthur and Tony Curtis. He sang to pay for classes.

In addition to jazz standards, he also brought back traditional songs from his childhood, building a repertoire of Haitian and Spanish folk songs and calypso, trying out material at the famed Village Vanguard. Belafonte landed a recording contract. “Calypso” brought his singing everywhere.

He was cast in films like “Island in the Sun,” but in an era of continued segregation, studios didn’t know what to do with him. The producers of “Carmen Jones” dubbed his singing voice with that of an opera singer, and the script for the end-of-the-world drama “The World, the Flesh and the Devil” was rewritten when the chemistry between Belafonte and his white female co-star proved too romantic. “My thought was, you can’t change Hollywood. What you’ve got to do is change America,” he said.

So, he began to spend more time on social causes. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called Belafonte, asking for the singer’s help. He became one of King’s confidants and a big contributor to the civil rights movement, helping to organize the March on Washington.

In the years that followed, Belafonte threw himself into humanitarian work. Witnessing famine first-hand in Africa, he had the idea to gather some of the biggest recording artists of the 1980s to perform “We Are the World,” raising millions for famine relief.

And Belafonte began to speak out, sometimes stridently, about U.S. foreign policy. “I think that the patriotic citizen is commanded and demanded to raise his or her voice on issues that he thinks are to the best interest of the nation,” he says. “And that’s what I do. I have a platform. I speak out.”

But music would continue to be his biggest platform for justice. In 1961 Belafonte began a recording project, “The Long Road to Freedom,” to preserve the richness of music from the Black diaspora. Because of changes at record labels, and shifts in popular culture, the album would not be finalized and released until 40 years later. The five-CD album was critically praised, and was nominated for three Grammys.

Of the long-in-the-works album, he told “Sunday Morning” in 2001, “I’m more proud of the journey, the men and women whom I met along the way who brought their passion and their hopes to it. This is a validation, a gift from them. So, I’m kind of glad that, as I sit in what I call the spring of my winter years in life, I should have heard all this before I become just a memory.”

Len Goodman

ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" - Season 20 - Week Nine

Ballroom dancing judge Len Goodman on “Dancing With the Stars” in 2015. | Adam Taylor/Disney General Entertainment via Getty Images


A former professional ballroom dancer and British champion, Len Goodman (April 25, 1944-April 22, 2023) was a head judge on the British competition series “Strictly Come Dancing,” beginning in 2004, and on its American iteration, “Dancing With the Stars,” which debuted the following year. He would be with “DWTS” for most of its run until 2022, during which time ballroom dancing saw a resurgence in interest on both sides of the Atlantic.

As a young man, Goodman worked as a shipyard welder for the same company that built the Titanic. He got into dancing as the result of a foot injury. “I had an old Scottish doctor who told me to go ballroom dancing; he said it was very good for your feet because you’re going up and down a lot,” Goodman told The Guardian in 2006. “I really didn’t want to go, I kicked up a right fuss. But once I’d been for a couple of weeks, I really loved it. I realized I had a bit of a talent for it.”

As a professional he won the British Championships, and opened a dancing school in Kent.

A charming and pithy Englishman with a cockney accent and an endearing fondness for colorful exaltations (“You floated across that floor like butter on a crumpet”), Goodman once referred to himself as “a cup of tea in a world of skinny lattés.” As a judge he was encouraging, occasionally harsh and dismissive, but always, to most eyes, fair – and certainly appreciative when a celebrity contestant’s talent would blossom on the dance floor.

Goodman recalled a valuable piece of advice that came from his father: “He said that a person only needs three things in their life: work, a marriage and a hobby. When you boil it down, those are the only important things. I’ve always thought that was a great bit of advice. And I am very fortunate that I’ve had a job that was also my hobby.”

Dame Edna (a.k.a. Barry Humphries)

BARRY HUMPHRIES

Australian comedian Barry Humphries (right), and as his most famous character, Dame Edna Everage. | Steve Parsons, Jeff Geissler/AP


“I had no intention of being an actor,” Barry Humphries (February 17, 1934-April 22, 2023) told “Sunday Morning” in 2010. “I thought I was going to be a painter, or a lawyer, something like that. I drifted into the theater – I still do, every night I just drift into the theater. I drift across the stage and sometimes I say to the audience, ‘I’m making this up as I go along.’ And they laugh, but it’s true!”

The Australian comedian was best-known for the creation that overtook his life: Mrs. Norm Everage, a dowdy Melbourne housewife who would in time transform into the glamorous, globetrotting Dame Edna – international celebrity, talk show host, and ebullient fixture of show business for nearly seven decades.

Edna was born from a university skit, and to Humphries’ surprise (and, he says, annoyance), people loved her from the start. She hosted a U.K. TV show, “The Dame Edna Experience,” in which the fake interviewer talked with real celebrities like Sean Connery and Charlton Heston. Her 1992 autobiography became a bestseller … on non-fiction lists. Even the 1988 death of the fictional star’s fictional husband, Norm Everage, was reported by a real BBC newscaster. [A grieving Edna told reporters that she missed her husband, “early on, you know, for the first couple of hours.”]

Humphries, meanwhile, was relegated to being Edna’s “manager.” She described him as “a sad person … a failure. And he resents the fact that I’m so popular.”

Which had the sting of truth. Humphries, who was married four times, suffered from alcoholism and depression. He toured for as much as nine months out of the year, impacting his family. 

Humphries appeared in one-man shows around the world for more than 60 years, more times than not in drag, and in 1979 won an Olivier Award for best comedy performance for “A Night with Dame Edna.” Edna appeared on Broadway three times, and in 2000, Humphries won a Tony Award for his solo show, “Dame Edna: The Royal Tour.”

He also acted on stage and in films under his own name, including “Oliver!,” “Waiting for Godot,” “Bedazzled,” “The Getting of Wisdom,” “Spice World,” “Nicholas Nickleby,” and “Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie.” He wrote for the satirical magazine Private Eye, had a BBC series of his own, and voiced Bruce the shark in “Finding Nemo.”

And while he created other characters as well – Sir Les Patterson, an idiotic diplomat; Sandy Stone, “Australia’s most boring man” – Dame Edna was his most popular, cheerily greeting her audiences with “Hello, possums,” and tossing gladiolas from the stage. But she wasn’t averse to insult comedy. “Do you live on an unpaved road?” she once asked an audience member. “It looks like you tried to put your makeup on in the car.”

Never mind that Edna (whom Humphries said was inspired, in part, by his mother) could be very un-PC. Humphries was circumspect about how her humor would fly in the face of political correctness and puritanism. “Edna says what they dare not say; she speaks her mind. Her observations, very often quite prejudiced, are often quite acute,” he said.

Does she ever go too far? “Always,” he said, “but never to the point of alienating her audience, or hurting them.”

And though he accepted that his character was far more famous than the man who played her, he told “Sunday Morning” that there was an advantage to keeping his association with her: “It does mean I have to mention her name if I want to get a good table in a restaurant!”

Mary Quant

Mary Quant

Fashion designer Mary Quant (right) with models at London’s Heathrow Airport, March 18, 1968. | Express/Getty Images


The fashion icon whose styles epitomized the Swinging ’60s, British designer Dame Mary Quant (February 11, 1930-April 13, 2023) helped popularize (some say invented) the miniskirt, and the tights that went with it. Her sexy and fun dresses and accessories influenced youth culture around the world, shaping the look of the era. Her impact on fashion was, some said, as powerful as The Beatles’ impact on music – a palpable youthquake.

Opening in 1955, her Chelsea shop, Bazaar, attracted younger customers. “Snobbery has gone out of fashion, and in our shops you will find duchesses jostling with typists to buy the same dress,” Quant once said. She called the store “a sophisticated candy store for grown-ups.”

Though minidresses had been spotted on French runways in the early ’60s, Quant’s version introduced in 1966 – with hemlines up to 8 inches above the knee, and named after the British car, the Mini – proved a hit, in part because of their propensity to shock older tastes.

“It was the girls on King’s Road who invented the mini,” Quant said. “I was making clothes which would let you run and dance and we would make them the length the customer wanted. I wore them very short, and the customers would say, ‘shorter, shorter.'” Hot pants and micro-minis would follow.

An astute businesswoman, Quant branched out into other areas, such as cosmetics and kitchenware, to foster her brand.

Al Jaffee

MAD Reunion

Mad Magazine cartoonist Al Jaffee in 2011. | STEPHEN MORTON/AP;’ Mad Magazine


Mad magazine cartoonist Al Jaffee (March 13, 1921-April 10, 2023) was one of the humor publication’s longest-running contributors, satirizing politics and culture, and delighting readers with his Fold-Ins and “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions” until he retired, in 2020, at age 99.

The premise of his Fold-In (a spoof of a Playboy magazine foldout) was that a full-page illustration and text would be collapsed at its midpoint, providing a surprise image and caption. One early Fold-In depicted Republican presidential contenders Nelson Rockefeller and Barry Goldwater; when the page was collapsed, the image became Richard Nixon.

His parodies of advertisements included such future real-life products as automatic redialing for a telephone, a computer spell-checker, and graffiti-proof surfaces. He also anticipated peelable stamps, multiblade razors and self-extinguishing cigarettes.

In a 2016 interview with The Guardian, Jaffee said Mad magazine’s purpose was to expose “bloviators,” but not in a preachy way: “We think it’s kind of a public service. We don’t favor one particular politician over another, we’re just looking for the politician that’s trying to pull the wool over our eyes and just exaggerate what they’re saying and then it speaks for itself.”

As a teenager he’d settled in New York City, where he attended the High School of Music & Art. His schoolmates included future Mad editor Harvey Kurtzmann and future Mad illustrator Will Elder.

Before Mad, Jaffee drew for Stan Lee at Timely Comics (which became Marvel Comics), and for the New York Herald Tribune.

Various collections of Jaffee’s Fold-Ins have been published. And when Jon Stewart and his “Daily Show” writers put together the bestselling “America (The Book),” released in 2004, they asked Jaffee to contribute a Fold-In.

Michael Lerner

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Michael Lerner in “Barton Fink” (1991). | 20th Century Fox


Brooklyn-born character actor Michael Lerner (June 22, 1941-April 8, 2023) earned an Academy Award nomination for his blistering performance as a 1940s movie studio mogul in the Coen Brothers comedy “Barton Fink.”

Lerner began acting as a teenager, and played Willie Loman in “Death of a Salesman” while attending Brooklyn College. He received a Fulbright Scholarship and studied theater at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. For a time he shared an apartment with Yoko Ono, and appeared alongside John Lennon in Ono’s 1968 short film, “Smile.”

Moving to Los Angeles, Lerner was cast in TV (“MASH,” “The Brady Bunch,” “The Rockford Files”) and films (“Alex in Wonderland,” “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” “Eight Men Out”). He played Jack Ruby in the TV movie “Ruby and Oswald,” and Pierre Salinger in “The Missiles of October.”

In 2016 Lerner, who’d auditioned for Joel and Ethan Coen for “Miller’s Crossing,” recalled how he read for “Barton Fink,” for the role of studio head Jack Lipnick, a boisterous performance that, he said, was inspired by Preston Sturges movies: “So, I walked into the room, as the character, and I don’t say hello to anybody. And I sit down behind my desk and do this big speech: ‘Bart! Bart! So great to see you.’ I did the monologue the way I wanted to do it and I just walked out of the room and that was it. And Joel and Ethan were just sitting in a corner just laughing and laughing and that was it.”

Lerner said the Coens didn’t give him much acting direction and were “a little nervous that I was talking so fast,” but they let him do what he wanted.

Lerner also appeared in Eddie Murphy’s “Harlem Nights,” “Elf,” Woody Allen’s “Celebrity,” “Godzilla” (as Mayor Ebert), “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” and “Mirror Mirror.”

He said he never felt cheated by being known as a “character actor” rather than a leading man. In a 1999 interview with Cigar Aficionado, he said, simply, “Every role is a character role.”

Ben Ferencz

Ben Ferencz

Nuremberg prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz in 2014. / Getty Images


In 1947, at the age of 27, and with no previous trial experience, Harvard Law graduate Benjamin Ferencz (March 11, 1920-April 7, 2023), an investigator of Nazi war crimes against U.S. soldiers as part of a new War Crimes Section of the Judge Advocate’s Office, became chief prosecutor for a case in which 22 former Nazi commanders were tried for genocidal war crimes.

Born in Transylvania in 1920, Ferencz had immigrated as a very young boy with his Jewish parents to New York to escape rampant antisemitism. After Harvard, he joined the U.S. Army, taking part in the invasion of Normandy.

When U.S. intelligence reports described soldiers encountering large groups of starving people in Nazi camps watched over by SS guards, Ferencz followed up with visits, first at the Ohrdruf labor camp in Germany and then at the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp. At those camps and later others, he found bodies “piled up like cordwood” and “helpless skeletons with diarrhea, dysentery, typhus, TB, pneumonia, and other ailments, retching in their louse-ridden bunks or on the ground with only their pathetic eyes pleading for help,” Ferencz wrote in an account of his life.

“The Buchenwald concentration camp was a charnel house of indescribable horrors,” Ferencz wrote. “There is no doubt that I was indelibly traumatized by my experiences as a war crimes investigator of Nazi extermination centers. I still try not to talk or think about the details.”

Because of his experiences as a war crimes investigator, after the war he was recruited to help prosecute Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials. Twenty-two men – Einsatzgruppen commanders – were charged with murdering more than one million people, not in concentration camps, but in towns and villages across Eastern Europe. Rather than depending on witnesses, Ferencz mostly relied on official German documents to make his case. All the defendants were convicted, and more than a dozen were sentenced to death by hanging even though Ferencz hadn’t asked for the death penalty. 

“I will tell you something very profound, which I have learned after many years,” Ferencz told “60 Minutes” in 2017. “War makes murderers out of otherwise decent people. All wars, and all decent people.” 

Ferencz later worked for a consortium of Jewish charitable groups to help Holocaust survivors regain properties, homes, businesses, art works, Torah scrolls, and other Jewish religious items that had been confiscated from them by the Nazis.

He championed the creation of an international court which could prosecute any government’s leaders for war crimes. When the International Criminal Court in The Hague was created in 1998, Ferencz delivered the closing argument in the court’s first case.  

In 2008, in a foreword to the post-Iraq invasion book “George W. Bush: War Criminal?” Ferencz wrote, “The reputation of the United States has been soiled by its staunch opposition to the International Criminal Court and to allowing any international or foreign tribunal to try American nationals for aggression or any other war crimes.”

In 2021 he wrote “Parting Words: 9 Lessons for a Remarkable Life.” 

“I’m still in there fighting,” Ferencz, then age 97, told “60 Minutes.” “And you know what keeps me going? I know I’m right.”

Mark Russell

Political satirist Mark Russell at the Bakersfield Business Conference

Political satirist Mark Russell performs in Bakersfield, Calif., October 12, 2002. | Christopher Ruppel/Getty Images


An early lesson for comedian Mark Russell (August 23, 1932-March 30, 2023) was, “Don’t talk about politics or religion.” Lesson not learned! For more than 50 years, the Buffalo native and Washington institution was a satirist with a never-ending font of inspiration: politicians. Beginning as a nightclub entertainer at hotels and strip joints during the Eisenhower administration, Russell was a poke in the eye to politicos of all stripes, mocking power games and peccadilloes in the nation’s capital, and basically assuring all that no emperors ever wear clothes.

Richard Nixon may have been the gift that kept giving for comedians, but his resignation marked a sea change for Russell. “When Watergate was over,” he once said, “I had to go back to writing my own material.”

Beginning in the 1970s, with his nationally-televised comedy specials on PBS and a regular stint at Ford’s Theatre, Russell still had Ford and Carter and Reagan and Clinton and two Bushes to kick around. And he really had no shortage of material: he quipped that he had 535 writers, courtesy of the Congressional Record.

In 2001, following the inauguration of President George W. Bush, Russell shared his gimlet take on the transfer of party rule with “Sunday Morning”: “They say, ‘Well, we’re going to restore civility.’ Restore? What civility are they going to restore? I’ve lived here all my life. You want civility? Move to Finland!” 

Ryuichi Sakamoto

Ryuichi Sakamoto in concert in Madrid in 2002. | Carlos Muina/Cover/Getty Images

Ryuichi Sakamoto in concert in Madrid in 2002. | Carlos Muina/Cover/Getty Images


Musician and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto (January 17, 1952-March 28, 2023) was a pioneer of electronic music, who also became a familiar name from film scores, winning an Oscar and a Grammy for co-writing music for Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Last Emperor.”

Born in Tokyo, Sakamoto studied music beginning at age 10; his influences included Debussy and The Beatles. In the 1970s he co-founded the Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi. Their synth-pop and techno tracks, performed on ARP, Moog and Buchla synthesizers, became international hits, including “Computer Game/Firecracker,” “Technopolis,” “Rydeen” and “Cue.” The group released eight studio albums and 15 live albums between 1978 and 2015.

Sakamoto also released 22 solo albums, including “Thousand Knives,” “B-2 Unit,” “Esperanto,” “Futurista,” “Neo Geo,” “Beauty,” “Heartbeat,” “Sweet Revenge,” “Chasm,” and “Out of Noise.”

As an actor he starred opposite David Bowie in the 1983 film “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence,” for which Sakamoto wrote the music, including the title track. His other scores include “The Sheltering Sky,” “High Heels,” “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “Snake Eyes,” “Femme Fatale,” “Wuthering Heights,” “Little Buddha,” “The Revenant,” and the Oliver Stone TV series “Wild Palms.” He shared an Oscar, Grammy and Golden Globe for his “Last Emperor” score with his collaborators, David Byrne (of Talking Heads) and Cong Su.

A pacifist and environmental activist, Sakamoto spoke out against nuclear power following the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdowns in 2011 that were triggered by an earthquake and tsunami. His 2017 album, “Async,” features the frail and haunting sounds of a piano that had been damaged by floodwaters from the tsunami. “Of course, it was totally out of tune,” he told The New York Times, “but I thought it was beautiful. I thought: ‘Nature tuned it.'”

Battling cancer, in January Sakamoto released a full-length album, “12,” on his 71st birthday. He said in a statement that composing it had a “small healing effect on my damaged body and soul.”

Willis Reed

Center of Attention. New York Knicks Willis Reed (19) moves

New York Knicks center Willis Reed (19) moves against Wilt Chamberlain of the Los Angeles Lakers during the final game of the NBA Championship Series, May 8, 1970. | Dan Farrell/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images


And here comes Willis, and the crowd is going wild!”  An All-Star seven times over, the NBA’s Most Valuable Player in 1970, and a Hall of Fame inductee, New York Knicks center and captain Willis Reed (June 25, 1942-March 21, 2023) had sat out Game 6 of the 1970 NBA championship series against the Los Angeles Lakers due to a thigh muscle injury. When a seventh game was forced at Madison Square Garden, Knicks fans cheered when Reed was spotted coming towards the court.

Though working with a limp, Reed made two quick jump shots in the early minutes of the game, and an energized Knicks (including a blazing Walt Frazier, who scored 36 points with 19 assists) rolled over the Lakers 113-99, winning their first NBA title.

A native of Hico, Louisiana, Reed led Grambling State to three Southwestern Athletic Conference championships, and an NAIA title in 1961. A second-round draft pick for the Knicks in 1964, he was voted Rookie of the Year after scoring 1,560 points. Playing alongside such future Hall of Famers as Frazier, Bill Bradley and Dave DeBusschere, Reed would become the anchor of the Knicks in an era when they were one of basketball’s premier teams.

Injuries kept Reed off the court for much of the 1971-72 season, but the following year he led the Knicks to their second title. Described by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver as “the ultimate team player and consummate leader,” Reed would score more than 12,000 points and 8,400 rebounds over ten seasons, averaging 18.7 points and 12.9 rebounds per game.

Reed went on to coach the Knicks to a playoff berth in 1977-78, and also coached the New Jersey Nets and Creighton University. He later served as an executive for the Knicks, as senior vice president of basketball operations.

In 1996 Reed was named among the 50 greatest players in NBA history.

In 2016 he talked to The New York Times about walking into Madison Square Garden now: “When I walk in and see my number (19) hanging from the ceiling, that’s what I’m most proud of. I think to myself that all the hard work paid off.”

Lance Reddick

Actor Lance Reddick at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. | Jeff Vespa/Wireimage via Getty


Character actor Lance Reddick (June 7, 1962-March 17, 2023) specialized in playing intense authority figures on TV and in films. He was best known as Lt. Cedric Daniels on HBO’s “The Wire.”

A Yale School of Drama graduate, Reddick was also a musician, who studied classical composition at the Eastman School of Music. But his efforts to break into the music industry were coming up short, and his odd jobs landed him in bed with a back injury. That was when, he told Casting Frontier in a 2019 interview, it was time to think outside the box: “You know what? If I keep doing this, I’ll be doing this for the rest of my life,” he said. “I thought, ‘Well, I don’t have any money; I don’t have any connections. What do I have? … Well, I know I can sing, and I know I can act, ’cause I acted in college.

“‘Well, let me try that.'”

He started getting small parts on TV and in the theater, before landing the role of an undercover officer masquerading as a prison inmate in “Oz.” He would later star in the series “The Wire,” “Fringe” and “Lost.” He played Continental Hotel concierge Charon in the “John Wick” films, and earned a SAG Award nomination as part of the cast of “One Night in Miami.”

His other appearances include “The West Wing,” “CSI: Miami,” “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” “Intelligence,” “Corporate,” “American Horror Story,” “Bosch,” “Oldboy,” “I Dreamed of Africa,” “The Siege,” “Great Expectations,” and “Angel Has Fallen.” He also was a voice actor on such shows as “The Vindicators,” “Duck Tales,” “Castlevania” and “Rick and Morty,” and played characters in video games, including the “Destiny” series.

Still to be released are “White Men Can’t Jump,” “Shirley,” “Ballerina” (a spinoff from “John Wick”), and “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial.”

He released a jazz album, “Contemplations and Remembrances,” in 2011. “Growing up as a musician I was always awed by it, but I was scared of it,” he said in a 2010 interview with the Philadelphia Sunday Sun. “I always thought jazz musicians were in a special category. There were rock musicians, there were classical musicians, but the jazz musicians were the real cats. …

“As an actor, unless you reach a particular level of stardom, you always feel like just a glorified employee. I really wanted to create something that I felt that I controlled. Started doing the songwriting demo, never intending for it to become an album. I just kept writing and starting writing excessively and listening to different kinds of music. I wrote more and more songs and thought, ‘What the heck, I’ll just do it.'”

Pat Schroeder

Pat Schroeder

Rep. Pat Schroder (D-Colo.), who brought her daughter, Jamie, to the Capitol to protest cuts in federally-funded day care centers, April 10, 1973. | Bettmann via Getty Images


In 1972 Pat Schroeder (July 30, 1940-March 13, 2023) became the first woman elected to Congress from Colorado. During her tenure she fought for women’s and family rights, and for expanding the voices of women in government.

A graduate of Harvard Law, Schroeder worked for the National Labor Relations Board and Planned Parenthood, and was a teacher in Denver.

In 1998 she published “24 Years of Housework … and the Place Is Still a Mess,″ which chronicled the frustration she experienced with the men who dominated Washington, and of her quixotic entry into politics. She wrote that she was asked to partake of a “kamikaze run” in 1972, a year when Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern was deemed to have no coattails in her district. Her husband, a lawyer who himself had lost a state race, told her, “You probably can’t even win the primary. But if you don’t get in the race and articulate the issues, they will not be discussed. You think the government’s policies about Vietnam and the environment are wrongheaded, and you’re always urging your students to get involved. It’s an opportunity that may not come again.” But Schroeder was surprise winner of the primary, and went on to win the general. She would easily win reelection 11 times.

One of her biggest legislative victories was a family leave bill in 1993, which provided job protection to those caring for a newborn, sick child, or parent. She was also instrumental in laws that protected women from being fired because they had become pregnant, and that expanded roles for women in the military.

Schroeder became the first woman named to the House Armed Services Committee, but she was forced to share a chair with Rep. Ron Dellums, the first African American; Schroeder said the committee chairman, Louisiana Democrat F. Edward Hebert, thought the committee was no place for a woman or an African American, and so they were each worth half a seat.

She would use her wit to attack misogyny. When one congressman asked how she could be a House member and the mother of two small children at the same time, she replied, “I have a brain and a uterus, and I use both”; and she once chided Pentagon officials that if they were women, they would always be pregnant, because they never said “No.″ She also applied the phrase “Teflon president” to Ronald Reagan. And to illustrate her charge that lawmakers spent too much time courting special interests and campaign donations, she and several aides climbed the Capitol dome and hung a 15-foot red banner reading, “Sold,” as backdrop for a gathering of Republicans on the Capitol’s steps celebrating their first 100 days in power in 1994.

She blasted Speaker Newt Gingrich for suggesting women serving in combat would be prone to infections, and filed an ethics complaint over Gingrich’s televised college lecture series; he became the first speaker reprimanded by Congress.

“I was never a shrinking violet, but I don’t think I would ever have exposed myself to the travails of political life if I hadn’t been given last rites at age thirty, almost bleeding to death after giving birth to my daughter,” she wrote. “That little ceremony gets your attention!”

After Congress, Schroeder became a professor at Princeton University. She also headed the Association of American Publishers.

Chaim Topol

Topol In 'Fiddler On The Roof'

Topol as Tevye in the 1971 film version of “Fiddler on the Roof.” | Archive Photos/Getty Images


Chaim Topol (September 9, 1935-March 8, 2023) was one of Israel’s leading actors, who became synonymous with a single character: Tevye, the milkman, in the musical “Fiddler on the Roof.” He played the part more than 3,500 times on stages around the world, beginning when he was 30 (aided by heavy makeup), and most recently in 2009, when he was in his mid-70s. (He received a Tony Award nomination for appearing in a 1990 Broadway revival.) He also starred in the 1971 movie version, for which he earned a Golden Globe Award and a best actor Oscar nomination.

While in the Israeli Army in the 1950s, Topol joined a military theatrical troupe, and when his enlistment ended he helped found another theater company. It was while with another troupe that performed works by Shakespeare, Ionesco and Brecht that he became what he called “a serious actor.” He made a splash internationally as the lead in the 1964 satirical film “Sallah Shabati,” which told of the hardships facing Jewish immigrants. It was the first Israeli production to receive an Academy Award nomination for best foreign language film, and it earned Topol a Golden Globe for most promising newcomer. He later appeared in “Cast a Giant Shadow” (with Kirk Douglas), and “Before Winter Comes” (with David Niven and John Hurt).

He said his experience as a descendant of Russian Jews helped him in his performance as Tevye, a part he was originally not attracted to after seeing Zero Mostel perform on Broadway. “I really didn’t like it,” Topol told the Jerusalem Post in 2013, “because Zero, as much as he was a genius, was sometimes unfaithful to the text. He was a crazy guy. The music was lovely. But I thought, ‘It’s not for me.'”

He would change his mind after watching a Hebrew production of “Fiddler,” starring Shmuel Rodensky, when he realized “what an idiot I was, what a wonderful part this was, because Rodensky was very serious and he didn’t play for the comedy – mainly during the second half, which is very serious – and broke my heart.” Topol would later call Tevye “one of the best parts ever written for a male actor-singer.”

After playing Tevye in Israel, he was hired to star in the London production, though was asked to drop his first name (as being too difficult to pronounce). He later won the lead in Norman Jewison’s film version of “Fiddler on the Roof,” which received eight Academy Award nominations and won three Oscars.

Other movie credits include “The Private Eye,” “Galileo,” “Flash Gordon,” and the James Bond film “For Your Eyes Only.” He appeared in the TV mini-series “The Winds of War” and “War and Remembrance.”

In his later years he served as chairman of Jordan River Village, an overnight camp for Middle Eastern children with chronic or life-threatening illnesses that had partnered with Paul Newman’s Hole in the Wall Gang camps.

In 2015 he told the Associated Press that he preferred working with charities to chasing acting roles, and spoke of promoting coexistence at his village in northern Israel: “I can tell you that in our village Jews and Arabs and Christians and Muslims … are hugging each other, and it works very well when politicians are not involved,” he said.

But even without chasing roles, he will be forever recognized as Tevye. “How many people are known for one part? How many people in my profession are known worldwide?” he told the AP. “I’m not complaining.”

Traute Lafrenz

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Traute Lafrenz, a member of the World War II resistance group, the White Rose. | File Photo


Traute Lafrenz (May 3, 1919-March 6, 2023) was the last known survivor of the White Rose, a group of students who resisted the Nazi regime in Germany during World War II. 

Born in Hamburg, Lafrenz moved to Munich to study medicine. There, she met Hans Scholl, one of a group of students who distributed leaflets opposing Hitler and Nazism. Hans and his sister, Sophie Scholl, were among those arrested and executed. Lafrenz was later arrested by the Gestapo in 1943, but hid her involvement with the White Rose, and received a one-year prison sentence. She was detained again at a prison in Bayreuth, and was awaiting trial when she was freed by American troops in April 1945, during the final days of the war.

She emigrated to the United States, completed her medical training in San Francisco, and married a doctor. She headed a school in Chicago, and retired in South Carolina.

On her 100th birthday Lafrenz was awarded Germany’s Order of Merit, citing her as one of the few who, “in the face of the crimes of national socialism, had the courage to listen to the voice of her conscience and rebel against the dictatorship and the genocide of the Jews. She is a heroine of freedom and humanity.”

Judy Heumann

Obit Judy Heumann

Disability rights activist Judy Heumann (center) is sworn in as U.S. Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Service, in Berkeley, Calif., June 29, 1993. | Susan Ragan/AP


The “mother of the disability rights movement,” Judy Heumann (December 18, 1947-March 4, 2023) lost her ability to walk at age 2 after contracting polio. She faced innumerable obstacles beginning in childhood, as when her parents tried to register her for kindergarten. The school denied her, claiming her wheelchair would create a fire hazard.

She grew up to become an activist who, through protests and legal actions, helped secure legislation protecting the rights of the disabled, including the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and the Rehabilitation Act.

She was featured in the Oscar-nominated 2020 documentary, “Crip Camp,” which highlighted Camp Jened, a summer camp in New York’s Catskills for people with disabilities, where Heumann was a counselor. The camp helped spark America’s disability rights movement.

During the 1970s she won a lawsuit against New York’s Board of Education, allowing her to work while using a wheelchair – becoming the first teacher in the state to do so. 

Heumann also founded a group called Disabled in Action, which conducted street demonstrations. In 1977, when the Carter administration was delaying the implementation of regulations that would protect the disabled, Heumann lead a sit-in with scores of disabled people (including some from Camp Jened) at a federal office building in San Francisco – an occupying force that a CBS News reporter at the time described as “protesters in wheelchairs, the lame, the palsied and the blind.” The sit-in would go on for weeks. Finally, Heumann and a small delegation traveled to Washington, D.C., to gain attention, hauled around town in the back of a truck. “It was very important for all of us that we wanted people to see us,” Heumann told “Sunday Morning” in 2021.

On the 23rd day of the San Francisco sit-in, the regulations were very quietly signed in Washington. Heumann told one gathering, “The Congress, the press, the American public have seen that we have stamina, strength and intelligence.” Their actions would help bring about passage of the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act.

Heumann served as assistant secretary of the U.S. Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services, from 1993 until 2001. She was also involved in passage of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified in 2008.

Wayne Shorter

Photo of Wayne Shorter

Jazz musician Wayne Shorter, c. 1962. | Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images


Jazz saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter (August 25, 1933-March 2, 2023) was a member of two of the most celebrated jazz groups of all time: Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, and the Miles Davis Quintet. He also co-founded the fusion band Weather Report, and composed such jazz standards as “Speak No Evil,” “Black Nile,” “Footprints,” and “Nefertiti.”

Growing up in Newark, New Jersey in the 1930s, he loved to draw comics, and would skip school to watch science-fiction films at a local theater. When he was caught, the vice principal forced him into a music class. “So, as I was walking away from her classroom, what was happening to me was what some people call life change,” Shorter told “CBS This Morning” in 2018.

In a career spanning nearly seven decades, Shorter would record more than 25 albums, winning 12 Grammys, mostly recently in February 2023 for best improvised jazz solo (“Endangered Species” with Leo Genovese). He received a lifetime Grammy Award in 2015.

He performed and recorded with such artists as Maynard Ferguson, Freddie Hubbard, Herbie Hancock, Joni Mitchell, Carlos Santana, Steely Dan, Norah Jones, and The Rolling Stones. His music has been performed by symphony orchestras in Chicago, Detroit, Lyon, Prague and Amsterdam. He also collaborated with Esperanza Spalding on an operatic work titled “(Iphigenia).”

Shorter was a Kennedy Center honoree in 2018. That year, he was asked by “CBS This Morning” why he loved jazz so much. He exclaimed, “Jazz is a fighter. The word jazz means to me, ‘I dare you. Let’s jump into the unknown!'”

Jean Faut

Chicago White Sox v Detroit Tigers

Jean Faut, a star player with the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League after World War II, waves to the crowd at Comerica Park in Detroit, Aug. 5, 2010. | Mark Cunningham/MLB Photos via Getty Images


A pitcher for the South Bend Blue Sox, one of the teams that made up the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during and after World War II, Jean Faut (January 17, 1925-February 28, 2023) was the league’s all-time ERA leader (1.23) after eight seasons, and was second in career wins (140). She also threw two no-hitters, as well as two perfect games – a feat no Major League Baseball pitcher ever matched. 

A Pennsylvania high school athlete with a strong arm, Faut pitched batting practice for the East Greenville Cubs, a semipro baseball team. A scout contacted her, and at age 21 Faut was recruited for the all-women’s baseball league. She married just before her second season started, and so she would juggle pitching and child-rearing as one of the league’s stars.

After five years, her place on the team was jeopardized when her husband, once a Philadelphia Phillies prospect, applied for and got the position of manager of the Blue Sox, without Faut knowing. It led to isolation from her teammates and friction with her husband. She retired in 1953, after leading the league in wins, strikeouts and ERA, and being named the league’s Player of the Year for the second time.

Faut later had a second child, divorced her husband, and remarried. She also competed in tournaments of the Professional Women’s Bowling Association. Among the jobs she held after her playing days was running the mosquito biology training program at the University of Notre Dame. 

Richard Belzer

Homicide: Life on the Street

Comedian-actor Richard Belzer as Detective John Munch, in a promotional photo for the series “Homicide: Life on the Street.” | Dave Bjerke/NBCUniversal via Getty Images


Comedian Richard Belzer (August 4, 1944-February 19, 2023) was long a mainstay of comedy clubs and cable specials, rising to become one of the top stand-ups of the ’70s and ’80s. Cynical, caustic and irreverent, he would engage with the audience, sometimes combatively. But beyond stand-up, he developed a separate persona as John Munch, a wise-cracking homicide detective prone to conspiracy theories, whom he portrayed in nearly a dozen different TV series, beginning in a 1993 episode of “Homicide: Life on the Street.” Over the next 23 years Munch would reappear in “The Wire,” “Law & Order,” “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” “Law and Order: Trial By Jury,” “The X-Files,” “The Beat,” “Arrested Development,” “30 Rock” and “Sesame Street.”

Belzer was brought in to read for the part of Munch after the executive producer of “Homicide,” Barry Levinson, heard the comedian on “The Howard Stern Show.” “The most difficult thing for me was to imagine myself as a detective,” Belzer told The Washington Post in 1994. “I had to figure out, how would I be a detective? How could that have happened in my life? I pretended my father was a detective who was killed in the line of duty and I wasn’t going to be a cop until he died. … I invented a past for myself.”

Born into an abusive household in Bridgeport, Connecticut (he was beaten by his mother; both parents died, his father by suicide, when Belzer was in his early 20s), he was expelled from college. After a series of jobs (including jewelry salesman, reporter, teacher and census taker), he landed a part in Channel One’s “Groove Tube,” a satire of television that co-starred Chevy Chase. The sketches, shot on video and presented off-Broadway, were later re-filmed and released as a movie. Belzer then landed at New York City’s Catch A Rising Star, becoming a regular and emcee. He served as the warm-up comic for “Saturday Night Live” when the series debuted, and went on to appear in and headline numerous TV specials. In 1984 he hosted the Cinemax talk show “The Richard Belzer Show.”

In addition to small roles in “Fame,” “Night Shift,” “Author! Author!,” “Scarface,” “Miami Vice,” “Fletch Lives,” “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” “Girl 6,” and “Species II,” among others, he’d also turn up as himself, in the Andy Kaufman biopic “Man on the Moon,” and “The Comedian.” Belzer wrote a quasi-self-help book, “How to Be a Stand-Up Comic,” and a novel, “I Am Not a Cop!” He also co-authored several books on conspiracy theories, from the Kennedy assassination to UFOs.

He settled a lawsuit with Hulk Hogan after the wrestler made an appearance in 1985 on Belzer’s cable talk show “Hot Properties.” To demonstrate a professional wrestling move, Hogan put the comedian in a headlock. Belzer fell unconscious, his head opening up on the studio floor. “A lot of people thought it was a stunt, but believe me, it wasn’t,” Belzer told the Post, explaining that with the settlement money he put a down payment on a house in France, which he cheekily dubbed the Hulk Hogan Arms.

Stella Stevens

Alfred Hitchcock Presents

Stella Stevens in a promotional photo for a 1960 episode of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” | CBS via Getty Images


Actress Stella Stevens (October 1, 1938-February 18, 2023) was a charmer whose lasting appeal was due to her deft balancing of her beauty and her light comic touch, perhaps no better employed than as the foil of the starry-eyed Jerry Lewis in the film “The Nutty Professor.” She was featured in numerous comedies in the 1960s and ’70s (winning a Golden Globe as New Star of the Year in 1960), but probably found her biggest audience as the bickering wife of Ernest Borgnine in the 1972 disaster film, “The Poseidon Adventure,” in which she performed many of her own stunts.

Born Estelle Caro Eggleston in Yazoo City, Mississippi, she married young and gave birth to son Andrew Stevens (who became an actor and producer) when she was 17. Two years later, she was divorced and began modeling and acting at Memphis State University, where she was spotted by a press agent at a performance of “Bus Stop.” She would go on to win roles in the musicals “Say One for Me” and “Li’l Abner,” and posed as a Playboy Playmate of the Month.

After some TV appearances (“Hawaiian Eye,” “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “Bonanza”), she starred in “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father” and the Elvis Presley picture “Girls! Girls! Girls!” Then came “The Nutty Professor,” playing student Stella Purdy, whom Lewis pines for, and tries to win over via the magic of chemistry, which transforms the nebbish into a suave man-about-town.

Other pictures included “The Secret of My Success,” “The Silencers,” “Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows,” “How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life,” Sam Peckinpah’s comic western “The Ballad of Cable Hogue,” and “Nickelodeon.” She was also featured in dramas, including John Cassavetes’ “Too Late Blues,” “Rage,” “The Mad Room,” and “A Town Called Hell.” She contributed to the blaxploitation genre, filming a love scene with Jim Brown in “Slaughter,” and fighting Tamara Dobson in “Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold.”

During the ’70s and ’80s she appeared frequently on TV, including the pilot for “Wonder Woman” opposite Lynda Carter, “Police Story,” “Hart to Hart,” “Flamingo Road,” “Matt Houston,” “The Love Boat,” “Fantasy Island,” “Night Court,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “Magnum, P.I.,” and “Santa Barbara.”

In 1979 Stevens directed a documentary, “The American Heroine,” which failed to win distribution. Ten years later, she directed her son in the romantic comedy “The Ranch.” 

Though she idolized Marilyn Monroe, she told Delta Magazine in 2010 that she didn’t want to imitate Monroe – she wanted to be herself. “I want to be remembered for whatever made people laugh the most,” she said. “I did like to make people laugh.”

Raquel Welch

Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C.

Raquel Welch starring in the 1966 film “One Million Years B.C.” | Hammer Films/20th Century Fox via Bettmann/Getty Images


When she was seven years old, Raquel Welch (September 5, 1940-February 15, 2023) had her first taste of acting on stage, playing a boy – an ironic introduction for an actress who would become internationally renowned as a leading sex symbol, applying her stunning beauty, a challenging self-confidence and a comic touch to performances on stage and screen.

Born of an Anglo mother and Bolivian father, Jo-Raquel Tejada was a beauty pageant winner, actress, dancer and San Diego TV news “weathergirl.” She was also a divorced mother of two young children when she met her second of four husbands, actor-turned-press agent Patrick Curtis, who helped shape her career. She had a flurry of guest roles in TV comedies (including “Bewitched” and “McHale’s Navy”), a bit part in the Elvis Presley film “Roustabout,” and a starring role opposite Marcello Mastroianni in the Italian “Shoot Loud, Louder… I Don’t Understand,” before starring in the sci-fi adventure “Fantastic Voyage,” playing a scientist shrunken and injected into a man’s bloodstream.

An even larger role came in the British dinosaur-and-caveman flick “One Million Years B.C.,” its poster and advertising images beckoning moviegoers with a provocative Welch clad in a deerskin bikini. She had virtually no lines, but didn’t need them to stun a global audience. As The New York Times opined, the film featured “a marvelous breathing monument to womankind named Raquel Welch.”

She became a phenomenon, gracing magazine covers and starring in a string of movies, from westerns (“Bandolero!,” “100 Rifles,” “Hannie Caulder”), thrillers ( “Fathom”), mysteries (“Lady in Cement,” “The Last of Sheila”), and the limited genre of roller derby films (“Kansas City Bomber”). She had a pronounced gift for comedy (“Bedazzled,” “The Magic Christian,” “Myra Breckinridge,” “Fuzz,” “Crossed Swords,” “Mother, Jugs & Speed,” “The Wild Party”), winning a Golden Globe for “The Three Musketeers.” She showcased her musical talents on TV alongside such glam stars as Tom Jones, Cher and Miss Piggy.

She won positive reviews when she replaced Lauren Bacall on Broadway in the musical “Woman of the Year,” and returned to the Great White Way for “Victor/Victoria” (this time playing a girl playing a boy playing a girl). On TV, she starred as the Latina Aunt Dora on PBS’ “American Family,” reclaiming part of her heritage (her father had banned speaking Spanish at home when she was growing up). She also got into a catfight with Julia Louis-Dreyfus on “Seinfeld.”

Welch also authored a bestselling book, starred in exercise videos, and helped raise millions for the American Cancer Society to buy wigs for cancer patients.

Burt Bacharach

Burt Bacharach

Burt Bacharach performs in Los Angeles c. 1968. | Martin Mills/Getty Images


The recipient of six Grammy Awards and three Oscars, songwriter, composer and pianist Burt Bacharach (May 12, 1928-February 8, 2023) helped create the soundtrack of several decades’ worth of pop hits, his musicianship drawing comparisons to Cole Porter. But he hadn’t even wanted to go into the music business. “I thought I’d probably wind up in the men’s clothing business,” he told “Sunday Morning” in 2002, “because I thought it was the easiest, most accessible job that my dad might be able to introduce me to.”

But then, after listening to the songs of the day, he decided that it would be easy to write them. “I mean, they were really ordinary, familiar. I thought this could be a snap. I was wrong! I did really, really bad!”

Having grown up influenced by both jazz and classical, Bacharach’s talent would be proven in creating melodies, though as a young man studying composition, he realized his peers favored an edgier, more dissonant sound. He told “60 Minutes” in 1999, “I had this one, the middle movement of this sonata, and I was almost ashamed to play it in class because it was so melodic, it really had a melody. And I kind of shuffled it through and played it, and he said … ‘Burt, don’t ever, ever feel ashamed of writing something that’s melodic, and that people can remember.'”

He was the orchestra leader for Marlene Dietrich’s cabaret shows, and wrote music for Broadway (“Promises, Promises”), and the movies (“Alfie,” “What’s New, Pussycat,” “Casino Royale,” “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “Arthur”). Bacharach’s songs, often written with longtime collaborator Hal David, were poignant, sometimes melancholic ballads about love and loss, and were consistent chart-toppers. His music was recorded by such artists as Nat King Cole, Perry Como, The Drifters, Cilla Black, Tom Jones, Dusty Springfield, Doris Day, Aretha Franklin, Luther Vandross, Carole Bayer Sager, Andy Williams, Roberta Flack, The 5th Dimension, Neil Diamond, Rod Stewart, Patti LaBelle, and Christopher Cross.

But the singer most closely tied to his work was Dionne Warwick. Their string of immortal hits included “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” “Don’t Make Me Over,” “Wishin’ and Hopin’,” “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” “Walk On By,” “A House Is Not a Home,” “You’ll Never Get to Heaven (If You Break My Heart),” “I Say a Little Prayer,” and “Do You Know the Way to San Jose.”

By the mid-seventies Bacharach’s music faded somewhat, as pop became harder, and his smooth melodies and lush, often quirky arrangements seemed stuck in the sixties. But then, who better to capture the era of Swinging London in the “Austin Powers” films? Bacharach appeared as himself in comedian Mike Myers’ first James Bond spoof, performing “What the World Needs Now Is Love,” and returned for the sequels.

Back in the public eye, he was soon back on the pop charts, thanks to an unlikely partner, British punk rocker Elvis Costello. After the two teamed on a song for the film “Grace of My Heart,” they collaborated on the album “Painted From Memory,” which featured “I Still Have That Other Girl,” earning the pair a Grammy for best pop collaboration with vocals.

A lesson in Bacharach’s innovation – and his singular knack for melody – could be heard in his story, told to “60 Minutes,” about the trouble he had with musicians performing one song, sung by Warwick: “I remember having a huge fight with the band at the Apollo, ’cause she was singing ‘Anyone Who Had a Heart,’ and that changes time signature every bar. They didn’t know why I’d done it. And I’m saying, ‘Listen, here’s the thing: the record’s a Top 10, so people are reacting to it. It’s Top 10 in the country; people are getting it, and they’re not trying to count it. Why don’t you guys just try to, instead of reading what’s on the paper, just feel it in your heart?'”

Bobby Hull

Bobby Hull On The Ice

Bobby Hull of the Chicago Blackhawks on the ice in the 1960s. | Bruce Bennett Studios via Getty Images Studios


Hall of Famer and two-time MVP Bobby Hull (January 3, 1939-January 30, 2023) helped the Chicago Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup in 1961. One of the most prolific forwards in NHL history, he scored 610 times during his 16-year career with Chicago, Hartford and Winnipeg. Nicknamed “The Golden Jet” for his speed and blond hair, he also collected 303 goals while playing for the Jets in the World Hockey Association for seven seasons, having been lured away from the NHL with hockey’s first $1 million contract.

Hull was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1983, and his No. 9 sweater was retired by the Blackhawks that same year.

In 1965 Hull talked with Sports Illustrated about his intuitions on how a game might turn out: “There are nights when I can tell long before a game how it is going to go. When you first go out onto the ice in the warmup you can tell. If your legs feel light you kind of smile to yourself and you take great joy in skating around and getting warm. When I go back down into the dressing room 15 minutes before the game I often say to Dennis [Hull, his brother and teammate], ‘I feel he’s got it tonight; I feel he’s got it tonight.’ Dennis laughs and sometimes he kids me by sending the word down the line: ‘The Rolls-Royce is going to roll tonight.'”

Lisa Loring

THE ADDAMS FAMILY

Lisa Loring as Wednesday Addams (with Ted Cassidy as Lurch) in the 1960s comedy series “The Addams Family.” | ABC Photo Archives via Getty Images


Lisa Loring (February 16, 1958-January 28, 2023) was a child actor (“Dr. Kildare”) and model when, at the age of five, she was cast as Wednesday Addams in the 1960s sitcom “The Addams Family.” Inspired by Charles Addams’ gruesomely hilarious cartoons of a sinister family living in a Gothic mansion, Wednesday was the young girl who played with a headless doll and kept a black widow spider as a pet. She also had some funky dance moves.

Loring told the Sydney Morning Herald in 2017 that, when auditioning, she topped actresses much older than she was for the role (it helped that she resembled Carolyn Jones, who played her mother, Morticia), but didn’t have a problem learning her lines: “I learned to memorize before I could read.”

Her life beyond “Addams Family” was certainly colorful. After her mother died, she married at age 15 – it was the first of four marriages (one of her husbands performed in porn films). She continued acting, on the soap opera “As the World Turns,” in guest appearances on “Fantasy Island” and “Barnaby Jones,” and in genre films, such as “Blood Frenzy,” “Savage Harbor” and “Doctor Spine.” And she’d appear at conventions, where she’d autograph pictures of her five-year-old self. 

Tom Verlaine

Tom Verlaine

Tom Verlaine of Television performs at Hammersmith Odeon, London, April 16, 1978. | Gus Stewart/Redferns via Getty Images


Guitarist Tom Verlaine (December 13, 1949-January 28, 2023) became a fixture of the downtown New York music venue CBGB, where he performed alongside such acts as the Ramones, Patti Smith and Talking Heads, including as part of the proto-punk band, Television, which he co-founded.

Television’s groundbreaking debut album “Marquee Moon” (1977) included a nearly 11-minute title track and “Elevation.” The band broke up the following year, after the release of their second album, “Adventure.” Verlaine was part of the lineup when the band reformed in the mid-’90s (when they released their third album), and again in 2001. Verlaine also went on to release ten albums of his own, his most successful being 1981’s “Dreamtime.”

His influences were less rock ‘n’ roll and more jazz and avant-garde concert composers (like Ligeti and Penderecki). Though he had a low professional profile, his guitar shredding and improvisations produced a unique sound (what Smith once described as “like a thousand bluebirds screaming”) that influenced such performers as Michael Stipe and Flea.

In 2006 Verlaine, described by The New York Times as a “guitar god,” explained to the paper why he hadn’t pursued more commercial success: “When I first started touring, having to get up at 7 a.m. to get on buses or go to airports after playing all night, I thought: ‘This is terrible. This is not what music is about.’ It dawned on me that I had to make a decision: Am I going to go along with this whole thing or not? I just said, nah. I decided against the whole ‘careering’ thing.”

Billy Packer

Big East Men's Basketball Tournament - Semifinals

College basketball announcer Billy Packer in 1991. | Mitchell Layton/Getty Images


Emmy Award-winning college basketball broadcaster Billy Packer (February 25, 1940-January 26, 2023) worked as an analyst and color commentator on every Final Four for 34 years beginning in 1975, for NBC and CBS.

Packer, who played three seasons at Wake Forest, and helped lead the Demon Deacons to the college tournament in 1962; 13 years later he was in the broadcast booth. He joined CBS in 1981, and was the network’s main analyst until the 2008 Final Four. That year he was inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.

In 2007 he told CBS Sports, “I had a chance to play in a Final Four way back in 1962 in San Diego, and about the only people who knew about it were the people from the various schools that were in it, and a few people in San Diego. But from a national perspective it was nothing like it became, even when I started broadcasting. Of course, now it’s become kind of a ritual, the month of March, for America.”

David Crosby

David Crosby, Portrait

A portrait of David Crosby c. 1974. | Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images


In 2008 singer-songwriter-guitarist David Crosby (August 14, 1941-January 18, 2023) told “Sunday Morning” a key to understanding the power and longevity of his music: “The best songs take you a while to digest, and no two people get exactly the same picture from them because they incite a little fire. They ignite a little fire in your imagination.”

Since the 1960s, Crosby has fired up lots of imaginations. Crosby dropped out of college to pursue his passion for music, and in 1964 he joined The Byrds, but his stint with the band came to an unhappy end, when he was thrown out. “I wasn’t that easy to handle,” he said. “I had a big ego, and I wanted them to play my songs. I was starting to write pretty good songs.”

He’d performed with Buffalo Springfield, before teaming with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash (and, for a time, Neil Young), to record some of the most essential music of the era, including the albums “Crosby, Stills & Nash” (1969), “Déjà Vu” (1970), the live album “4 Way Street” (1971), and “CSN” (1977).  When Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young started touring in the summer of ’69, the second gig they ever played was a little gathering called Woodstock.

The production of “Déjà Vu” came at a particularly fraught time for each of the band’s members. For Crosby, his girlfriend, Christine Hinton, had been killed in a car crash. “I was in terrible shape,” Crosby told Anthony Mason in 2021. “I was damn near destroyed. I’m just really lucky we were making that record, because it gave me a raison d’être … It’s what kept me alive.”

Crosby would record 17 studio albums with The Byrds, CS&N and others. He also released eight solo studio albums, including 1971’s “If I Could Only Remember My Name.” Among the songs for which Crosby is credited as writer or co-writer are “Renaissance Fair,” “Everybody’s Been Burned,” “Wooden Ships,” “Long Time Gone,” “Déjà Vu,” “Guinnevere,” “Almost Cut My Hair,” “Long Time Gone,” and “Laughing.”

In the 1980s addiction led to drug charges and a year-and-a-half in prison, during which he went cold turkey, and came out vowing to remain sober. In later years he received a liver transplant and underwent heart surgery. But he also recorded four albums as part of the trio CPR (in which he performed with session guitarist Jeff Pevar, and keyboardist James Raymond, a child he’d had out of wedlock and given up for adoption in 1962, with whom he’d reunited).

In 2000 it was revealed that Crosby was the father (via artificial insemination) of two children Melissa Etheridge shared with her then-partner Julie Cypher. 

Lloyd Morrisett

Lloyd Morrisett

2019 Kennedy Center honoree Lloyd Morrisett, the co-founder of “Sesame Street.” | Greg Allen/Invision/AP


Lloyd Morrisett (November 2, 1929-January 15, 2023), who had trained to be a teacher with a background in psychology, and who earned his doctorate in experimental psychology at Yale University, was looking for new ways to educate children from less-advantaged backgrounds.

In 1966, at a dinner party with documentary producer Joan Ganz Cooney, Morrisett asked her, “Joan, do you think television could be used to teach young children?” Their conversations about the possibilities led to the founding of the Children’s Television Workshop, and their marquee production, “Sesame Street,”

Morrisett and Cooney worked with Harvard University developmental psychologist Gerald Lesser to build the show’s unique approach to teaching, featuring a culturally-diverse cast, augmented with Jim Henson’s lovable Muppets. Since its 1969 debut, “Sesame Street” has won 216 Emmys, 11 Grammys, and the Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime artistic achievement – the first television program to receive the award. The series is shown in more than 150 countries, reaching 120 million children. 

Lisa Marie Presley

Lisa Marie Presley working on her debut album

Singer Lisa Marie Presley recording her debut album, “To Whom It May Concern.” | Mirek Towski/FilmMagic via Getty Images


The only child of Elvis Presley, Lisa Marie Presley (February 1, 1968-January 12, 2023) lived with her mother, actress Priscilla Presley, after her parents split up in 1973, when Lisa Marie was four. But she remembered her father during frequent visits to Graceland, including when he’d make his entrances. “He was always fully, fully geared up,” she told The Associated Press in 2012. “You’d never see him in his pajamas coming down the steps, ever. You’d never see him in anything but ‘ready to be seen’ attire.”

Lisa Marie was just nine when Elvis died, but he loomed large over her life, as she embarked on a career as a singer-songwriter, even mixing her voice with his in a video of his 1969 ballad, “Don’t Cry Daddy.” She performed on stage with such artists as Pat Benatar and Richard Hawley, and recorded three albums, two of which – “To Whom It May Concern” and “Now What” – hit Billboard’s Top 10.

Lisa Marie’s personal life was rocky: four marriages (including to Michael Jackson and Nicolas Cage), struggles with drugs, custody battles and financial hardships. One of her sons, Benjamin Storm Presley Keough, died by suicide in 2020.

The sole heir of the Elvis Presley Trust after her father died, she sold her majority interest in the trust in 2005, but retained ownership of Graceland Mansion, its contents, and the 13 acres surrounding it.

In 2012 she told the AP, “I’m proud to be my father’s daughter … I do feel honored about that.”

Robbie Bachman

Bachman Turner Overdrive Live At Fillmore East

Drummer Robbie Bachman, of Bachman-Turner Overdrive, performs at the New Fillmore East in New York, December 1974. | Fin Costello/Redferns via Getty Images


Robbie Bachman (February 18, 1953-January 12, 2023) was drummer for the Canadian hard rock band Bachman-Turner Overdrive, whose hits in the 1970s included “Takin’ Care of Business” and “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet.”

Robbie and his brothers, Randy and Tim, were Winnipeg natives who’d played music since childhood. After Randy abruptly left The Guess Who following their success with “American Woman,” the three Bachmans teamed up for the group Brave Belt, joined by bassist/vocalist Fred Turner. Brave Belt would eventually morph into Bachman-Turner Overdrive (the word “Overdrive” pinched from the cover of a trucker magazine).

Between 1973 and 1979 the group released eight albums, including “Not Fragile” and “Four Wheel Drive” (which both hit #1 on the Billboard chart), “Head On,” and their eponymous debut album.

In addition to “Takin’ Care of Business” and “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet,” BTO’s Top 20 hits included “Let It Ride,” “Roll On Down the Highway,” “Hey You,” “Quick Change Artist,” and “Down to the Line.”

In 1980, a few years after Randy left the group, BTO broke up. The brothers rarely performed together afterwards.

In 2014, when BTO was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, Robbie explained the music’s appeal, and what differentiated it from other rock at the time, to the Toronto Star: “We didn’t tell anybody they were wrong or anything was bad or don’t do this. It was basically, have a good time, fun music. … Just coming out of the ’70s with the Vietnam War and all the political things going on — in Canada with Trudeau, and Richard Nixon and stuff like that — we just basically had enough of that stuff.”

Jeff Beck

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Guitarist Jeff Beck. | Ed Spinelli for CBS News


As a member of The Yardbirds and later as a solo artist, guitar virtuoso Jeff Beck (June 24, 1944-January 10, 2023) pushed the boundaries of rock ‘n’ roll, incorporating jazz, funk, blues and opera into his music, which was improvisational — and inspirational to generations of guitar shredders.

He performed with artists as varied as Jimi Hendrix, Brian Wilson, Stevie Wonder, Cyndi Lauper, Wynonna Judd, Rod Stewart and Luciano Pavarotti. He recorded 17 albums, including “Truth,” “Beck-Ola,” “Jeff Beck Group,” “Beck, Bogert & Appice,” “Blow by Blow,” “Wired,” “There & Back,” “Emotion & Commotion,” and “18.” As a guest artist he performed on numerous recordings, including by Tina Turner (“Private Dancer”), Mick Jagger (“She’s the Boss”), Diana Ross (“Swept Away”), ZZ Top (“Hey Mr. Millionaire”), and Ozzy Osbourne (“Patient Number 0”).

Beck won eight Grammy Awards, and was twice inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (as a member of the Yardbirds, and as a solo act).

Russell Banks

Russell Banks Portrait Session

A portrait of writer Russell Banks in Paris, April 12, 1991. | Ulf Andersen/Getty Images


The son of a New Hampshire plumber, novelist Russell Banks (March 28, 1940-January 7, 2023) often wrote, in such acclaimed works as “Affliction,” “The Sweet Hereafter” and “Continental Drift,” about the world of trailer parks and debt-plagued people barely hanging on – “People who perceive themselves and are pretty much perceived as outside the mainstream wanting to get in or, having failed that, trying to figure out how to live outside,” he told “Sunday Morning” in 1995.

A professor emeritus at Princeton University, Banks was raised in the Northeast, and lived near the burial ground of abolitionist John Brown, in North Elba, New York. He told the Associated Press in 1998 of walking past his grave often enough that Brown “became a kind of ghostly presence” – the subject of his ambitious 1998 novel, “Cloudsplitter,” a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Beginning with his 1975 “Family Life,” Banks penned 14 novels, including “Rule of the Bone,” “The Darling,” and his last, 2022’s “The Magic Kingdom.” He also wrote short story collections and nonfiction.

A moralist writing about the marginalized, Banks said of his work, “I’m operating out of a belief that all lives are interconnected and that we’re all implicated in each other’s fates in significant ways and bear terrible responsibilities toward and for each other, most of which we abandon and run from. But I believe it.”

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Top 10 Music Festival Lineups of All Time

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Every year, social media starts to fill up with summer festival posters boasting dozens of bands, DJs and rappers, from household names to regional obscurities, and music fans start budgeting for tickets and travel. Festivals where you could see more than a handful of popular acts were a rare novelty when rock counterculture first exploded in the 1960s, but now it’s possible to see an incredible amount of live music in one place.

Even after the success of the original Woodstock, truly huge festivals only seemed to come along every few years. In the 1990s, traveling festivals like Lollapalooza, H.O.R.D.E. and The Warped Tour redefined how many bands could go on the road together. In the new millennium, though, music fans began flocking to destination festivals like Coachella in California or Bonnaroo in Tennessee, relishing the chance to spend a weekend or two seeing dozens of favorite artists. But what are the greatest musical festival lineups of all time? Let’s pour a glass of smooth Bourbon and take a look back at ten festivals that pulled together a truly incredible collection of talent, presented in partnership with Larceny Bourbon

Photo by Michael Ochs
(Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

The Monterey International Pop Festival (1967)

The Monterey International Pop Festival was a watershed moment for the “Summer of Love” that flowered in California in 1967. Organized by producer Lou Adler and British journalist Derek Taylor, Monterey Pop was eagerly anticipated for the first major concert appearances on U.S. soil for The Who and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Hendrix played his guitar with his teeth, and ended his set by lighting his instrument on fire. Big Brother and the Holding Company’s explosive performance of “Ball and Chain” was widely credited with turning Janis Joplin into a major star, and Monterey was considered one of Otis Redding’s greatest performances, less than six months before his untimely death. 

(Photo by Getty Images/Getty Images)

Woodstock (1969)

Several performers from Monterey Pop convened on Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel, New York for another festival two summers later, including Hendrix and The Who. Woodstock became an even bigger moment for ‘60s rock, however, bringing together defining acts of the era including Creedence Clearwater Revival, Sly and the Family Stone, Santana, The Grateful Dead, and Jefferson Airplane. The supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash played one of its first performances expanded to a quartet with Neil Young, and later CSNY recorded a hit rendition of “Woodstock,” a song Joni Mitchell wrote after missing the festival. 

(Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

Wattstax (1972)

Woodstock was a clear inspiration when pioneering Memphis soul label Stax Records decided to name its Wattstax festival, held in Watts in southern Los Angeles on the seventh anniversary of the 1965 Watts Rebellion. Wattstax was a legendary summit for Black pop in its own right, spawning a live album and concert film. Stax artists Isaac Hayes, The Staple Singers, Rufus Thomas, The Bar-Kays, and Eddie Floyd all performed, and the Reverend Jesse Jackson was the emcee for the marathon day of performances at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. 

(Photo by Phil Dent/Redferns)

Live Aid (1985)

After Boomtown Rats frontman Bob Geldof organized the 1984 charity single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” to raise funds to combat famine in Ethiopia, he decided to up the ante with a massive international concert to benefit the same cause. Held simultaneously in London and Philadelphia on July 13, 1985, Live Aid was a transatlantic event featuring Elton John, David Bowie, a reunited Led Zeppelin, and Phil Collins, who took a Concorde jet in order to perform at both concerts. Bono jumped into the audience for a performance that turned U2 into international stars, and Queen rose to the occasion with one of the most legendary festival sets of all time. 

(Photo by Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images)

Lollapalooza (1992)

Perry Farrell founded Lollapalooza in 1991 as a sendoff for his band Jane’s Addiction before their breakup. Turning the idea of an alternative rock festival tour into an annual summer tradition, however, Lollapalooza truly became a cultural force in its second year with headliners including Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ice Cube, Ministry, and Jesus And Mary Chain, and side stage upstarts like Tool and Rage Against the Machine. The rapidly exploding Seattle bands Pearl Jam and Soundgarden became the star attractions of the second Lollapalooza, however, with some rare performances by the supergroup featuring members of both bands, Temple of the Dog. 

(Photo by Mick Hutson/Redferns)

Glastonbury (1995)

Pilton, Somerset had been the site of one of England’s most beloved annual rock festivals since 1970. Glastonbury’s most legendary year was 1995, at the height of the Britpop movement, when so many fans without tickets jumped the security fence that attendance is believed to have doubled from the previous year. Oasis, Elastica, The Cure, Jeff Buckley, and PJ Harvey all performed. But when The Stone Roses had to cancel at the last minute, the far lesser known Pulp were selected to take their slot, and a climactic performance of their just-released hit “Common People” helped the band become champions of the Britpop era. 

(Photo by Karl Walter/Getty Images)

Coachella (2006)

Founded in 1999, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival reshaped the American concert industry in the early 2000s, with a move towards star-studded destination festivals in places like the Colorado Desert. Alternative rock veterans Depeche Mode and Tool headlined the 2006 edition of Coachella alongside indie rock’s top young bands like Bloc Party and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. It was Daft Punk’s legendary set, debuting a massive pyramid-shaped stage set, that made Coachella memorable that year, pointing the way towards how dance music would become a crucial part of most rock festivals in the years ahead. 

(Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)

Bonnaroo (2009)

The Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival began in Manchester, Tennessee in 2002. Leaning more towards jam bands and roots rock than counterparts like Coachella, Bonnaroo has frequently hosted Phish, Widespread Panic, and performances by members of The Grateful Dead. Bonnaroo gradually diversified over the years, though, and in 2009 Phish headlined alongside Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, who played a 3-hour set that thrilled from “Badlands” to “Dancing In The Dark.” Beastie Boys fans didn’t know it at the time, but the trio’s Bonnaroo set would be their final live performance before Adam Yauch’s death three years later.  

(Photo by Mariano Regidor/Redferns)

The Sonisphere Festival (2010)

When American heavy metal became faster and more intricate in the 1980s, a few bands emerged as the “big four” that defined the popular new subgenre of thrash: Metallica, Slayer, and Megadeth from California, and Anthrax from New York. Given that Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine had been kicked out of Metallica and the bands had feuded on and off for years, it seemed unlikely that thrash fans would ever see the big four all on the same bill. Decades after those bands changed the course of heavy music, however, it finally happened at The Sonisphere Festival in Warsaw, Poland. The event, which fans also watched live in hundreds of movie theaters across America and Europe, featured members of all four bands jamming together on a cover of “Am I Evil?” by the influential British band Diamond Head.  

(Photo by C Flanigan/Getty Images)

Austin City Limits Music Festival (2011)

PBS began airing the live music series Austin City Limits in 1974, helping burnish the Texas town’s reputation as “the live music capital of the world.” It didn’t become a full-scale annual festival until 2002, however. The festival’s 10th year was its most impressively star-studded to date, with an intergenerational lineup including Stevie Wonder, Coldplay, Kanye West, Arcade Fire, Nas, Alison Krauss, and My Morning Jacket. 

 

John E. Fitzgerald Larceny®. Bardstown, KY 46% Alc./Vol. © 2023



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Remembering John Kahn, Jerry Garcia’s Main

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Twenty-seven years ago today, Jerry Garcia‘s longtime bassist and collaborator John Kahn died in his sleep after suffering a heart attack at the age of 48. Kahn’s sudden, untimely death came less than a year after Garcia’s own tragic passing.

Few people have lived a life as interesting as Kahn’s. Born in Memphis, TN in 1947, John Kahn was adopted at birth by a pair of Los Angeles agents. He grew up in Beverly Hills, CA surrounded by the Hollywood elite, and was babysat as a child by a young Marilyn Monroe as she began to pursue her acting career. As his widow, Linda Kahn, noted in a 2017 Reddit AMA, “It’s not a rumour, she was a babysitter. John’s dad tried to get her a contract with all the studios to no avail so he instead hired her as a babysitter.”

John Kahn began to take piano and music theory lessons by the time he was five years old. Following the death of his father at a young age, he was mentored by acclaimed violinist Mischa Elman, his father’s cousin. As Linda noted in her AMA, “Mischa helped John. He saw the musical prodigy in John and got him into playing and theory.”

Kahn had earned a reputation as a talented jazz guitarist by the time he enrolled at Beverly Hills High School, and made the switch to double bass during his junior year. After a brief stint at the University of Southern California, he transferred to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he was greeted head-on by the burgeoning Haight-Ashbury counterculture scene.

It was there that Kahn linked up with Garcia for the first time while working with various influential blues and folk artists as an in-demand session musician. He wound up joining a new jazz-rock ensemble surrounding Garcia and organist Howard Wales and helped them record 1971’s Hooteroll?. Kahn once again joined Garcia—this time on acoustic bass—when he hit the road with bluegrass supergroup Old and in the Way. Below, listen to Jerry and John play as an acoustic duo at Oregon State Prison on May 5th, 1982 via YouTube user LongStrangeTrip710:

Jerry Garcia & John Kahn – “Rueben and Cherise” – 5/5/82

Kahn played in all of Garcia’s various collaborations with organist Merl Saunders, from Saunders/Garcia Band to Legion of Mary and beyond. He started Reconstruction with Saunders and company to occupy himself while Jerry was busy with the Dead, and Jerry naturally joined up as their lead guitarist once again while the Dead were on their October 1974–June 1976 hiatus. John Kahn was the low-end backbone around which the Jerry Garcia Band eventually evolved. Watch Jerry Garcia, John Khan, and company perform Bob Dylan‘s “Tangled Up In Blue” in 1977 below:

Jerry Garcia Band – “Tangled Up In Blue” (Bob Dylan) – Asbury Park, NJ – 7/9/77

[Video: Grateful Dead on MV]

Kahn also played in additional limited side projects with his longtime friend and collaborator. Watch him play bass with Garcia and Bob Weir at a rare San Francisco trio performance on December 17th, 1987 below:

Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, & John Kahn – “When I Paint My Masterpiece” (Bob Dylan) – 12/17/87

[Video: LoloYodel]

He continued to collaborate with Garcia up until the guitarist’s death in 1995 and was the only player beside Jerry himself who remained a staple of the ever-fluctuating Garcia solo lineup. With his untimely death following Jerry’s on this day in 1996, Kahn became yet another piece of the Garcia legacy that was gone way too soon.

Rest in peace, John Kahn.

[Originally published 5/30/18]



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St. Joseph’s Health Amphitheater at Lakeview says

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SYRACUSE, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) — This summer, Syracuse’s St. Joseph’s Health Amphitheater at Lakeview has a long list of concerts queued up for the season.

Amongst that list are some big hits like Shania Twain, Phish, Chris Stapleton and more, which have sold thousands of tickets.

So, the Amphitheater is reminding everyone of their lawn chair policy.

Syracuse’s St. Joseph’s Health Amphitheater at Lakeview has reminds ticketholders of these select concerts that outside lawn chairs will not be permitted:

  • Chris Stapleton – June 8, 2023
  • Shania Twain – July 8, 2023
  • Phish – July 23, 2034
  • Zac Brown Band – August 11, 2023

The Amphitheater also states this policy is consistent with the lawn chair policy implemented in 2022, for the Morgan Wallen concert.

According to the Amphitheater, the venue lawn chair policy states that “for the safety, comfort and experience of all fans, the Venue reserves the right to not permit outside lawn chairs from being brought into the venue. A limited number of lawn chair rentals will be available for advance purchase online or at the venue on the day of the event, while supplies last.”

This is a blanketed policy for all attendees at shows that sell over 14,000 in tickets and no lawn chairs would be permitted to be brought into the venue.

While this policy is relatively new, the Amphitheater will likely reach out to lawn ticket purchasers in advance if the concert sells that many tickets.

If ticket purchasers are ever confused or unsure if they are allowed to bring a lawn chair, the Amphitheater encourages them to check this information on their website for each show they attend. 

It is outlined for concert goers under ‘Important Details’ section of each event listing on the amphitheater’s website.

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Taylor Swift, Paramore, Hardy among top concerts

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June looks to be a crowded month of shows in Pittsburgh, headlined by a pair of Taylor Swift shows at Acrisure Stadium. Here’s a look at the most notable shows coming to the area in June:

June’s top shows

June 11: Paramore, Bloc Party, Genesis Owusu at PPG Paints Arena

Paramore is hitting arenas on this tour on the heels of the release of its latest album, “This is Why,” in February.

“This tour feels like we got our sea legs the most out of all the tours we’ve done for this album thus far,” singer Hayley Williams told the Cut. “The album started out so shaky, and we kind of had to relearn: How do we write together? How do we move our bodies so that they don’t break down on us, because after four years of chilling at home for the first time as adults, it was definitely zero to 60 — or more.”

Read more: Onstage, Hayley Williams follows no rules

June 15: Hardy, Dylan Marlowe, Blame My Youth at Stage AE

Country rocker Hardy extended his “The Mockingbird and the Crow” tour to include Pittsburgh after a vocal injury forced Morgan Wallen to postpone his PNC Park shows (Hardy was scheduled to open).

After starting as a songwriter — with songs co-written with Blake Shelton, Florida Georgia Line and Jameson Rodgers, to name a few — Hardy started putting out his own music in 2018, with 2023’s “The Mockingbird & the Crow” hitting No. 1 on Billboard in both the top rock and top country album charts.

“I absorbed and lived the country lifestyle growing up and that’s why I talk about it or write about it in my songs so much,” he told Forbes earlier this year. “I listened to rock, but I grew up a little redneck or smalltown kid, whatever you want to call it, so that’s where my lyrics come from.”

Read more: Meaning behind the modern murder ballad, ‘Wait in the Truck,’ by Hardy and Lainey Wilson

June 16-17: Taylor Swift, Girl in Red, Gracie Abrams/Owenn at Acrisure Stadium

The stadium-filling juggernaut that is Taylor Swift comes to Pittsburgh for two sold-out shows at Acrisure Stadium. The Eras Tour is hitting stadiums throughout the United States, and she also has her re-recorded version of “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” coming out in July.

“And I’m making more albums at a more rapid pace than I ever did before, because I think the more art you create, hopefully the less pressure you put on yourself,” Swift said in a conversation with playwright Martin McDonagh hosted by Variety. “It’s just a phase I’m in right now. And everybody’s different. There are people who put an album out every five years and it’s brilliant and that’s the way they work. And I have full respect for that. But I’m happier when I’m making things more often.”

Read more: Why Taylor Swift is the new Grateful Dead – and what it means for the future of live entertainment

June 20: boygenius, Claud at Stage AE

The indie rock supergroup boygenius — Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus — released its debut album, “the record,” in March. (The band’s critically acclaimed, self-titled EP came out in 2018).

“We’ve made a document of our friendship that exists primarily for our gratification that we get to share as something we do,” Baker told Alternative Press.

Read more: How boygenius became the world’s most exciting supergroup

Sold-out shows

June 2: Kansas at the Benedum Center

Classic rockers Kansas are kicking off their 50th anniversary “Another Fork in the Road” tour on June 2 at the Benedum Center. Kansas, best known for songs like “Carry On Wayward Son” and “Dust in the Wind,” made their Pittsburgh debut in 1975 at the Stanley Theater (now known as the Benedum).

June 6: Noah Kahan, Richy Mitch & the Coal Miners at Stage AE

Singer-songwriter Noah Kahan brings his “Stick Season” tour to Pittsburgh a few days ahead of the June 9 release of “Stick Season (We’ll All Be Here Forever),” an expanded version of his 2022 album.


Related

John Mellencamp rolls through his hits in Pittsburgh performance
Blink-182 bringss wild ‘Rock Show’ to PPG Paints Arena
Billy Idol shows no signs of slowing down in Pittsburgh concert


Other notable shows

June 3: Jay and the Americans, Charlie Thomas’ Drifters, Jay Siegel’s Tokens, The Skyliners, Chris Ruggiero, Emil Stucchio & the Classics at the Benedum Center

June 4: Jackson Browne at Benedum Center

June 5: Dead & Company at the Pavilion at Star Lake

June 7: All Time Low, Mayday Parade, Games We Play at Stage AE

June 8: Three Rivers Arts Festival: Corinne Bailey Rae at Dollar Bank Main Stage

June 9: O.A.R., The 502s at Stage AE

June 10: Hank Williams Jr., Old Crow Medicine Show at the Pavilion at Star Lake

June 13: Pixies, Franz Ferdinand, Bully at Stage AE

June 13: Candlebox, The Dead Deads at Roxian Theatre

June 16: Trace Adkins at Hollywood Casino at the Meadows

June 18: Young the Giant, Milky Chance, TALK at Stage AE

June 18: America at the Palace Theatre

June 19: Descendents, Circle Jerks, Adolescents at Roxian Theatre

June 23: Dave Matthews Band at the Pavilion at Star Lake

June 23: Ben Folds, Tall Heights at the Palace Theatre

June 24: Dierks Bentley, Jordan Davis, Hailey Whitters at the Pavilion at Star Lake

June 26: Counting Crows, Dashboard Confessional at UPMC Events Center

June 27: Rebelution, Iration, DJ Mackle at Stage AE

June 28: Big Time Rush, Max, Jax at the Pavilion at Star Lake

June 28: My Morning Jacket, Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe at Stage AE

Mike Palm is a Tribune-Review digital producer. You can contact Mike at 412-380-5674 or mpalm@triblive.com.

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‘The world is changing’: Dana Kaplan steers

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Dana Kaplan, executive director of Outright Vermont, said he’s trying to lead it through growth “at the speed that young people need us.” Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger

Dana Kaplan wants to push things forward.

The executive director of the LGBTQ+ youth nonprofit Outright Vermont said the organization’s mission has had to evolve during his tenure. Instead of reacting to negative events, he said, they now aim to proactively change the environments they are working in.

“We only have a finite amount of energy and if we’re constantly having to play defense, we’re not getting to know what it feels like to play offense,” Kaplan said in an interview.

The “offense” in that metaphor means building on Outright’s mission — to provide “hope, equity and power” to all Vermont LGBTQ+ youth — and also working to transform “schools, communities and systems.”

“We can’t just be working with youth, we have to be working with the systems that they’re navigating,” Kaplan said in an interview.

Kaplan has steered that evolution in his time as executive director, a role he took on in 2018. 

Allison Mindel, co-chair of Outright’s board of directors, has worked with nonprofits for over 25 years. 

“Rarely do you see the right leader in the right moment for the right organization,” Mindel said about Kaplan. “And I would definitely describe him as that.”

City kid

Kaplan pointed to his upbringing as a “New York City kid” that helped to color his perspective on identity and activism.

He described how he recognized that he was a white, middle-class person, but going to public school on a bus in the city revealed that there were many others who didn’t look like him. Growing up Jewish, he also was “instilled with a lot of values around leaving things better than you found them and the importance of community service and community engagement.”

It was Kaplan’s father who spoke about the need to “always look out for the underdog.” That soon translated to activism. Kaplan got involved in clubs that delivered meals to homebound people living with AIDS. He also worked with the Ronald McDonald House to raise funds for young people battling cancer.

Back then he was “a big Phish fan” and he came to Burlington with a friend to tour Northeast colleges. With a visit to Nectar’s, seeing Lake Champlain and walking around Church Street, Kaplan fell for the community and was further drawn by University of Vermont’s social work program. It was a “lightbulb moment” to Kaplan when he found a course of study that allowed him to connect his earlier activism with a career path.

After graduating, Kaplan worked with a number of nonprofits: Women Helping Battered Women, Title IV Indian Education and the Committee on Temporary Shelter.

It was around this period when bigger questions about identity came up in Kaplan’s life. Kaplan came out as queer after college. And it “felt right” to remain in Vermont, in part, to create some distance between the life he led before “to be able to focus on me.”

Then, about 10 years after coming out as queer, Kaplan came out for a second time as trans. After getting a graduate degree, he was working for UVM at the Women’s Center, a role Kaplan stepped away from after coming out as trans.

Kaplan medically transitioned, he said, and was recovering from a surgery when someone sent him the job posting for education director at Outright, where Kaplan had volunteered.

“It just kind of clicked,” he said.

The mission

For years, Outright’s mission was to create safe, healthy and supportive environments for LGBTQ+ youth, ages 13-22. 

There would be multiple evolutions from that, but one starting point was reconsidering the age range. Around 10 years ago, the organization started to hear from family members of young LGBTQ+ people who needed help to provide better support. Simultaneously, the organization started hearing from parents and schools about younger kids — age 12 and under. The organization had to ask itself, “how do we respond to this trend of youth coming out younger and younger,” Kaplan said.

In addition to the age shift, new research was emerging about family support. 

Dana Kaplan, executive director of Outright Vermont, in Burlington on Thursday, May 18, 2023. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger

Research out of San Francisco State University revealed that the amount of support that an LGBTQ+ child gets from their family is linked to better outcomes later in life with respect to physical and mental health.

It was this research that prompted Outright to look at broadening its mission.

“We said, OK, as we’re looking at how to shift environments, we can’t just be working with youth,” Kaplan said. “We have to look at the systems that they’re navigating and one of those systems is their families and caregivers.”

But beyond families, they also worked to expand further into “schools, communities and systems,” according to Kaplan.

Outright runs the Vermont Gender and Sexuality Alliance, or GSA, a network of LGBTQ+ student groups. There are 92 such groups in Vermont schools, part of a nationwide network. 

Kaplan said Outright sought to grow the GSA program, in part to provide a space for youth to go outside of their families, but also to be able to go to youth all around the state and to listen “and sort of take a pulse.”

The organization has also tried to expand how they work with schools on training. Instead of doing a one-off training session, which Kaplan said can sometimes result in complacency, it is instead working with districts to sign contracts to do multiple trainings over the course of a school year.

“Because we recognize that it’s about creating shifts that are deeper than a one-off, hourlong training to talk about vocabulary,” Kaplan said. “That’s not giving people hope, equity and power.”

In addition to schools, Outright also expanded youth leadership and organizing programs, further pushing their mission into changing systems and policy. 

“It’s a matter of actively trying to shift what’s happening for young people so they aren’t having to navigate such harm and they can have access to the things that they need to live their lives,” Kaplan said.

Kaplan acknowledged that in previous years, Outright has been a statewide organization “in theory,” based in Burlington and primarily accessible in Chittenden County. But the team has worked to make that statewide status a reality, through the GSAs and expanding its staple Friday Night Group program, the organization’s long-running support group, to other areas.

When Kaplan started as executive director in 2018, there were four staff members in the organization and a budget of $350,000. Today there are 12 staff members — with a 13th joining later this year — and a $1.7 million budget.

Kaplan distilled all the changes as “trying to move at the speed that young people need us to move while also knowing that we’re creating something that is sustainable.”

Mindel, the board co-chair, has a background in funding nonprofits, and described Outright’s finances as a mix of “a good, healthy combination of state grants” and individual donations. One of the organization’s largest fundraising events is the annual Fire Truck Pull, where teams are formed from all over the area to raise money and enter for a chance to pull the truck.

‘Activation works both ways’

Outright Vermont held its 2022 Fire Truck Pull on Oct. 1 last year. On a sunny Saturday afternoon, a Burlington Fire Department engine was positioned on Church Street near Ben & Jerry’s. 

It’s a familiar event for Outright and for Burlington, with its festive atmosphere, loud music, bright colors and teams, often in coordinated outfits, waiting their turn for the truck pull. 

But in October, it was the first time the event was protested. 

In an interview at the time, Kaplan pointed to the protest at the fire truck pull, another protest at the Vermont Pride Parade in September and the vitriol surrounding a trans girl’s use of the locker room at Randolph Union High School as evidence of “coordinated efforts” happening both nationally and locally. 

Outright Vermont held its annual Fire Truck Pull fundraiser in Burlington on Oct. 1, 2022. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger

This month, Kaplan pointed to the 2016 election of President Donald Trump as the beginning of a troubling trend, seeing an uptick of “galvanized hate” at the national level. 

Vermont is not immune, and Burlington in particular has contended with a persistent stickering campaign of anti-trans slogans and messages being placed in public places around the city for years. The high-visibility of the stickers inspired a City Council resolution condemning anti-trans hate speech. Kaplan addressed the council prior to the unanimous passage of the resolution.

While Vermont has a progressive reputation, Kaplan said, that can also mask “the targeted hate” that exists in the state.

A couple days prior to VTDigger’s interview with Kaplan in mid-May, he noted that he was walking to lunch in Burlington when he found two more anti-trans stickers, placed about 100 feet from Outright’s offices. 

The level of hate has indeed become more visible in the last eight to 10 years, Kaplan said, and later described it as “a sense of activation.”

“That level of activation works both ways,” Kaplan said. “And I think that our base of supporters is stronger than ever.”

Mindel, whose grown child was formerly active in Outright programs, recalled what happened at last year’s fire truck pull. She said Outright knew that the group of protesters was coming and the community rallied to counter. 

“The number of people who showed up with signs and flags and banners so that kids could just enjoy that day and not see (the protesters’ signs) was just amazing,” Mindel said.

That circle of protection that occurred at the fundraiser, Mindel said, is also an example of Outright’s general response to recent events.

“Whenever there is something that happens in the state that is picked up by the national media, they get flooded with calls and harassment and they do everything in their power to protect us from seeing it and they take that on themselves,” Mindel said.

The political climate and instances of anti-trans actions and policies have put pressure on the community “and, as a result, the organization,” according to Mike Pieciak, Vermont’s state treasurer and a board member at Outright for the past year. 

“Dana has really risen to the occasion,” Pieciak said.

Pieciak said part of the way that Kaplan has met the moment is by being proactive and not reactive in order to “change the landscape for LGBTQ+ youth and not necessarily having to run from one hateful event to the next.”

Despite the anti-trans campaigns that Outright finds itself navigating, Kaplan said there is still a lot to be hopeful about. He cited all the young people speaking confidently at the Youth Leadership Day at the Statehouse, about how the movement is “connecting the dots” between gender justice, racial justice and class issues. He also recalled how his 5- and 8-year-old kids now introduce themselves with their pronouns, even though “I’m not asking them to do that.”

“I do believe that the world is changing,” Kaplan said. “And that the mainstream awareness of how we create belonging together is shifting.”



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