Ike Stubblefield June 7, 1952 in Toledo, Ohio, died June 20, 2021 was an American musician, who performed with a wide array of artists on Hammond B3 organ, Stubblefield started his career in 1968 playing keyboards with the Motown Review performers including the Four Tops, Martha Reeves, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and Rare Earth. He performed on stage on the Hammond B3 organ from 1970-1975 with George Benson, B.B. King, Ike & Tina Turner, Curtis Mayfield, Al Green, Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart, The Jerry Garcia Band, Johnny Adams, Bobby Caldwell, Boz Scaggs, Esther Phillips, The Pointer Sisters, and others.
Billy Joe Thomas August 7, 1942 – May 29, 2021 was an American singer widely known for his pop, country, and Christian hits of the 1960s and 1970s. He made popular recordings of “Hooked on a Feeling” (1968), “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” (1969), and “(Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song” (1975).
Lloyd Price March 9, 1933 – May 3, 2021 was an American R&B vocalist,known as “Mr. Personality”, after his 1959 million-selling hit, “Personality”. His first recording, “Lawdy Miss Clawdy”, was a hit for Specialty Records in 1952. He continued to release records, but none were as popular until several years later, when he refined the New Orleans beat and achieved a series of national hits. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998
Earl Simmons December 18, 1970 – April 9, 2021, known by his stage name DMX Dark Man X, was an American rapper, songwriter, and actor. He began rapping in the early 1990s and released his debut album It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot in 1998, to both critical acclaim and commercial success, selling 251,000 copies within its first week of release. He released his best-selling album, … And Then There Was X, in 1999, which included the hit single “Party Up (Up in Here)”. His 2003 singles “Where the Hood At?” and “X Gon’ Give It to Ya” were also commercially successful.
Mark Anthony Morales February 19, 1968 – February 18, 2021, better known by the stage name Prince Markie Dee, was an American rapper, songwriter, producer, and radio personality. Morales was a member of the Fat Boys, a pioneering rap group that gained fame during the 1980s. Morales was the vice-president of Uncle Louie Music Group
Armando Anthony “Chick” Corea June 12, 1941 – February 9,2021 was an American jazz composer, keyboardist,bandleader and occasional percussionist. His compositions”Spain”, “500 Miles High”, “La Fiesta”, “Armando’s Rhumba” and”Windows” are widely considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis’s band in the late 1960s, he participated in the birth of jazz fusion. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever. Along with Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Keith Jarrett and Bill Evans, he is considered one of the major piano writers to emerge in jazz during the post-John Coltrane era. Corea won 23 Grammy Awards and was nominated over 60 times.
Mary Wilson March 6, 1944 – February 8, 2021 was an American singer and concert performer best known as a founding member of the Supremes, the most successful Motown act of the 1960s and the best-charting female group in U.S. history, as well as one of the all-time best-selling girl groups in the world. The group released a record-setting twelve number-one hit singles on the Billboard Hot 100, ten of which Wilson sang backing vocals for.
James & Bobby Purify were an R&B singing duo, whose biggest hits were “I’m Your Puppet” in 1966, which reached number six in the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and in a re-recorded version number 12 in the UK Singles Chart (in May 1976), and “Let Love Come Between Us” in 1967, which reached number 23 in the US.
Sylvain Mizrahi February 14, 1951 January 13, 2021 known professionally as Sylvain Sylvain, was an American rock guitarist, most notable for being a member of the New York Dolls, New York Dolls were an American rock band formed in New York City in 1971. They were one of the first bands of the early punk rock scenes