Year: 2008

LeRoi Moore (September 7, 1961 – August 19, 2008) was an American saxophonist best known as a founding member of the Dave Matthews Band. Moore often arranged music for the songs written by frontman Dave Matthews. Moore also co-wrote many of the band’s songs, notably "Too Much" and "Stay".

Death of LeRoi Moor:
LeRoi Moor died of complications from his injuries in the ATV accident.
LeRoi Moor was 46 years old at the time of his death

ATV accident and death:
Moore was injured on June 30, 2008 in an ATV accident on his farm outside Charlottesville, Virginia, breaking several ribs and puncturing a lung, and was hospitalized at UVA for several days. Jeff Coffin, the saxophonist from Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, stood in for Moore on subsequent tour dates. Though released several days later, Moore was re-hospitalized in mid-July for complications related to the accident.

On August 19, 2008, the official Dave Matthews Band website reported that Moore died of complications from his injuries in the ATV accident. The following statement was released on the band’s website:

We are deeply saddened that LeRoi Moore, saxophonist and founding member of Dave Matthews Band, died unexpectedly Tuesday afternoon, August 19, 2008, at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles from sudden complications stemming from his June ATV accident on his farm near Charlottesville, Virginia. LeRoi had recently returned to his Los Angeles home to begin an intensive physical rehabilitation program.

Dave Matthews paid tribute to Moore on August 19, 2008 at the Staples Center, Los Angeles, after the band’s first song of the performance – "Bartender". "We all had some bad news today," Matthews told the sold-out crowd. "Our good friend LeRoi Moore passed on and gave his soul up today and we will miss him forever." Fans then shouted Moore’s name in remembrance.

Breaking News, more coming 

Pervis Jackson is an American R&B singer, noted as the bass singer for The Spinners , and is one of the group’s original members. He is perhaps best known for his line of "12:45" from the group’s Billboard Top 10 smash, "They Just Can’t Stop It (Games People Play)". As of 2008, Jackson was still singing with The Spinners. 08-18-2008 Pervis Jackson, a member of "The Spinners," died from cancer at Sinai Grace hospital this morning.

The group took off in the 70’s with one of its bigger hits – Games People Play.

According to the Detroit News, Pervis Jackson died of cancer on August 18, 2008 in Detroit, MI. He was 70-years-old.

Last living partner of Atlantic Records

Gerald "Jerry" Wexler (January 10, 1917 – August 15, 2008) was a music journalist turned music producer, and was regarded as one of the major record industry players behind music from the 1950s through the 1980s. He coined the term "Rhythm & Blues", and was integral in signing and/or producing many of the biggest acts of the last 50 years, including Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Led Zeppelin, Wilson Pickett, Dusty Springfield and Bob Dylan. Wexler was inducted in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

Death of Jerry Wexler
Wexler died at a hospice in Sarasota, Florida on August 15, 2008 from congenital heart disease according to his son, Paul.  Jerry Wexler was 91 years old of age at the time of his death.

George Furth (December 14, 1932 – August 11, 2008) was a Tony Award-winning American librettist, playwright, and actor.

Furth won both the Tony and Drama Desk Award for Best Book of a Musical for Company, and was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play for Precious Sons.

Death of George Furth
Not much detail is available on George Furth’s death.

Frequently cast as a bespectacled, nerdish, ineffectual type, Furth appeared in such films as Blazing Saddles, The Best Man, Myra Breckinridge, Oh God!, Hooper, The Cannonball Run, Young Doctors in Love, Doctor Detroit, Bulworth, and in perhaps his best remembered role, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, in which he portrayed Woodcock, the railroad guard robbed twice by the titular pair. His many television credits include Tammy, McHale’s Navy, F Troop, Ironside, I Dream of Jeannie, That Girl, Green Acres, The Monkees, The Odd Couple, Bonanza, Happy Days, All in the Family, Murphy Brown, L.A. Law, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Murder, She Wrote, and the made-for-TV movie The Scarlett O’Hara War, in which he portrayed famed film director George Cukor. He adapted Twigs for a 1975 television production starring Carol Burnett.

British actor, well known in the US

Terence Rigby (January 2 1937 – August 11, 2008) was an English actor. In the 1970s he was well-known as police dog-handler PC Snow in the long-running series Softly, Softly: Taskforce

The star’s film credits included Mona Lisa Smile in 2003, James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), The Dogs of War (1980), Get Carter (1971), and Scandal in 1989.

Death of Terence Rigby
Terence Rigby died at his London home and had been suffering from lung cancer.
Terence Rigby was 71 years old at the time of his death

• Terence Rigby at the Internet Movie Database (Filmography)
• BBC article on Terence Rigby

* Younger generation people know him as a voice of "Chef" from "South park" 

Isaac Lee Hayes, Jr. (August 20, 1942 – August 10, 2008) was an American soul and funk singer-songwriter, musician, record producer, arranger, composer and actor. Hayes was one of the main creative forces behind southern soul music label Stax Records, where he served as both an in-house songwriter and producer with partner David Porter during the mid-1960s. In the late 1960s, Hayes became a recording artist, and recorded successful soul albums such as Hot Buttered Soul (1969) and Black Moses (1971) as the Stax label’s premier artist.

Death of Isaac Hayes
Isaac Hayes was found dead in his home located just east of Memphis, Tennessee on August 10, 2008 as reported by the Shelby County, Tennessee Sheriff’s Department. A Shelby County Sheriff’s deputy responded to Hayes’ home after his wife found him on the floor near a still-running treadmill. Hayes was taken to Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, where he was pronounced dead at 2:08pm.

2 days later (August 12, 2008) Isaac hayes’ death was officially filed as a stroke brought on by chronic hypertension.  Isaac Hayes was 65 years of at the time of his death.

Isaac Hayes – Shaft

Howard G Minsky (January 21, 1914 – August 10, 2008) is the producer of the blockbuster film Love Story which when released in 1970 was widely thought to have saved Paramount Pictures during a financially strained time. He later produced Jory in 1973.

Death of Howard Minsky
Howard Minsky died of natural causes at a hospital in Florida.  He was 94 years old at the time of his death.
Howard Minsky lived in Palm Beach, Florida. 

Howard Minsky started working from silent movie era.
Howard Minsky had married to his wife Sylvia for over 65 years until her death in 2002.

Bernard Jeffrey "Bernie Mac" McCullough (October 5, 1957 – August 9, 2008) was a two time Emmy Award-nominated American actor and comedian.

Death of Bernie Mac
Bernie Mac was hospitalized with pneumonia on August 1, 2008 and the following day, a source close to the family said that Mac was in "very, very critical" condition. He was recovering from pneumonia, most likely brought on by his sarcoidosis, in a Chicago hospital. His publicist, Danica Smith, said that he was expected to make a full recovery and that he was responding well to treatment.

On August 9, 2008 it was reported by the Chicago Sun-Times that Bernie Mac had died, with confirmation by the Associated Press about the cause of his death

Bernie Mac Show
2 times Emmy nominated, 2 times Golden Globe Nominated

 

Bernard J. "Bernie" Brillstein (April 26, 1931, in New York City, New York – August 7, 2008, in Los Angeles, California) was an American film and television producer and executive producer.

Death of Bernard Brillstein:
On the evening of August 7, 2008, around 9:00pm, Brillstein died of chronic pulmonary heart disease at a Los Angeles hospital.[4] He is survived by his wife Carrie, daughter Leigh and Kate Brillstein, and three sons Michael Brillstein, David and Nick Koskoff.

Bernard Brillstein formed The Brillstein Company in 1969. There, he continued to manage stars and develop television programming. He produced such popular television hits as Hee Haw, The Muppet Show and Saturday Night Live.

Bernard Brillstein later became manager of SNL alums Gilda Radner , John Belushi and Lorne Michaels, as well as Jim Henson (of Muppets fame) and Paul Fusco (voice and operator of ALF). He produced such other television shows as Alf: The Animated Series, and Normal Life.

Bernard Brillstein has been responsible for such successes as The Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, Dragnet, Ghostbusters II, Happy Gilmore and The Cable Guy.

Bernard Brillstein received the honor as recipient of a star on Hollywood Walk of Fame, on April 18, 2001.

Brillstein Quote. "…you’re no one in this business, unless someone wants you dead."

* America apologizes for not knowing such a legend, but some of us do.

Reg Lindsay (1929 – August 5, 2008) was a Australian Country and Western singer who won three Golden Guitar Awards and wrote more than five hundred songs in his fifty year music career.

Death of Reg Lindsay
Reg Lindsay died of pneumonia after a long battle with illness, surrounded by his wife Roslyn and three daughters. Red Lindsay was 75 years old at the time of his death.