Dead Celebrity (Part 1)

I’d never heard of this guy. An unsung (pun intended) backroom hero of the recording studio.

at one point he featured on 13 of the Top 25 songs on the US Billboard singles chart.

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20 Feet From Stardom and The Wrecking Crew are both great documentaries about the backup industry. It’s amazing the talent back there.

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The last of the old school GOP in GA is dying off…

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Trigger warning for suicide

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I notice you put a warning and the article had a warning about the possible cause of death.

Why is that?

Because of this (same CW as before)

This is not the place to discuss it further.

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What is CW?

And I asked so I could learn. Thanks for the explanation.

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Good point. CW and TW have been added to the Acronyms and glossary topic.

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Thank you.

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This isn’t someone I knew about until I read this in today’s paper.

And he performed in the five-note pentatonic scale common to sub-Saharan Africa — a sound that distinguishes Sudanese music from the seven-note heptatonic scale more common to the Middle East and North Africa.

This suggested to me that it might sound like Ethiopian or Eritrean music* and, sure enough, it does, more than a little:

*(I mean, it isn’t unexpected, given that the countries are all adjacent, but Ethiopia and Eritrea more closely share a history and culture that, to my knowledge, are rather different from Sudan’s.)

YMMV but I found the poem at the end of the WaPo article to be very moving:

At an event in Khartoum honoring Mr. Elkabli in 2019, almost anticipating his death and expressing his spirituality, he recited from his poem “The Divine Essence”:

I look forward to meeting you my Lord

In the eagerness of a Sufi at ecstasy

My soul to Your sky precedes me

As for my mortal hands and body

Will return to Your soil as flowers and roses

A workshop of colors

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Joan Didion, 1934-2021

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Oh no…

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