Dead Celebrity Alert

MADRID, Spain (CNN) — A drummer for the Swedish pop group ABBA has died after an apparent accident at his home in Spain, a Civil Guard spokeswoman said Monday.

Ola Brunkert was found dead late Sunday at his home in the town of Arta on Spain’s Mediterranean island of Mallorca, the spokeswoman said.

Police believe Brunkert may have fallen against a glass partition separating his home’s kitchen from the garden, and the glass broke and fatally cut his throat, she said.

He was found in the garden and is believed to have bled to death, she added. An official cause of death is pending until after an autopsy. …

He was not among the four best-known members of ABBA whose faces adorned the album covers — Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Agnetha Faltskog — but he was a key supporting musician for the group as it achieved stardom. … Read full obituary

March 7, 2008 — John Lennon nicknamed him “Normal”, and under the name “Hurricane” Smith he enjoyed a one-off No1 hit, but it was as plain Norman Smith that he made his mark on the history of popular music.

As George Martin’s engineer and right-hand man, Smith twiddled the knobs, set up the microphones, checked the levels and acted as general factotum on all the Beatles’ recordings between 1962 and 1965, totalling some 150 songs from Love Me Do and She Loves You to Nowhere Man and Norwegian Wood.

Promoted from engineer to A&R man and producer, he then signed Pink Floyd to EMI and produced their first three albums. Smith’s own brief emergence from backroom wizard to unlikely singing star came when his composition Oh Babe What Would You Say? topped the charts in 1972. …

Smith worked with Martin on every Beatles single and album up until and including Rubber Soul (1965). … Read full obituary

Italy’s Giuseppe Di Stefano, one of the greatest tenors of the 20th century and celebrated singing partner of Maria Callas, has died.

Monika Curth says her 86-year-old husband died Monday morning at his home near Milan from injuries sustained when he was attacked in Kenya in 2004. …

From the late 1940s to the early 1960s, Di Stefano sang at the world’s top opera houses, including Milan’s La Scala and New York’s Metropolitan Opera, and made frequent performances and recordings with Callas. … Read full obituary

TORONTO (AP) — Blind rock and jazz musician Jeff Healey has died after a lifelong battle against cancer. He was 41.

Healey died Sunday evening in a Toronto hospital, said bandmate Colin Bray, who was in the room with Healey’s family when the guitarist died.

The Grammy-nominated Healey rose to stardom as the leader of the Jeff Healey Band, a rock-oriented trio that gained international acclaim and platinum record sales with the 1988 album “See the Light.” The album included the hit single “Angel Eyes.”

Healey had battled cancer since age 1, when a rare form of retinal cancer known as Retinoblastoma claimed his eyesight.

Due to his blindness, Healey taught himself to play guitar by laying the instrument across his lap.

His unique playing style, combined with his blues-oriented vocals, earned him a reputation as a teenage musical prodigy. He shared stages with George Harrison, B.B. King and Stevie Ray Vaughan. … Read full obituary

LONDON (AP) — Dave Clark Five lead singer Mike Smith died of pneumonia Thursday, less than two weeks before the band is to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was 64. …

He was admitted to the intensive care unit Wednesday morning with a chest infection, a complication from a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed below the ribcage with limited use of his upper body. Lewis said he was injured when he fell from a fence at his home in Spain in September 2003.

Smith had been in the hospital since the accident, and was just released last December when he moved into a specially prepared home near the hospital with his wife. …

Smith wrote songs as well as singing and playing keyboards for the Dave Clark Five, one of many British rock acts whose music swept across the United States in the 1960s during the so-called British Invasion. … Read full obituary

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (AP) — Margaret Truman, the only child of former President Harry S. Truman who became a concert singer, actress, radio and TV personality and mystery writer, died Tuesday. She was 83.

Truman, known as Margaret Truman Daniel in private life, died at a Chicago assisted living facility following a brief illness, according to a statement from the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum in Independence. She had been at the facility for the past several weeks and was on a respirator, the library said.

Her father’s succession to the presidency in 1945 thrust her into the national spotlight while a college junior. …

Her singing career attracted the barbs of music critics — even the embarrassment of having her father threaten one reviewer. …

She published her first book, an autobiography titled “Souvenir,” in 1956. … Read full obituary

SAN DIEGO — John Stewart recorded some of pop music’s most acclaimed solo albums, helping create a style that came to be called Americana, but he was always best known for writing the Monkees’ enduring hit “Daydream Believer.”

Stewart, who came to prominence in the 1960s as a member of folk music’s Kingston Trio, died Saturday at a San Diego hospital after suffering a brain aneurism. He was 68. …

Stewart left the Kingston Trio shortly before the Monkees released “Daydream Believer” in 1967, then went on to record nearly four dozen solo albums, including the critically acclaimed “California Bloodlines” and “Bombs Away Dream Babies.” The latter included the hit single “Gold,” in which he dueted with Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks.

Still, as with “Daydream Believer,” he was likely best known for writing songs for others, including Joan Baez, Nanci Griffith, Roseanne Cash and Anne Murray. … Read full obituary

DUBLIN, Ireland — Joe Dolan, one of Ireland’s first pop music stars, entertained audiences for decades with Vegas-style showmanship. He died Wednesday from a brain hemorrhage, his family announced. He was 68.

He was the most celebrated — and fondly caricatured — survivor of Ireland’s bygone “showband” era of the 1960s and 1970s, when homegrown rock ‘n’ roll acts toured the country playing cover versions of international hits.

His biggest hit in 1969, “Make Me an Island,” reached No. 3 in Britain and No. 1 in 14 other countries. Other hits that climbed the European charts included “You’re Such a Good-Looking Woman” in 1970, “Lady in Blue” in 1975 and “I Need You” in 1977. … Read full obituary

Former Rogue Wave multi-instrumentalist Evan Farrell died Dec. 23 in Oakland, Calif., from injuries suffered in an apartment fire caused by a space heater. Details are still coming together, but Farrell succumbed from massive smoke inhalation, according to reports.

The musician, who was 33, had traveled to Oakland from his home base in Bloomington, Ind., to play music with his on-again/off-again band the Japonize Elephants. … Read full obituary

TORONTO, Ontario (AP) — Oscar Peterson, whose early talent and speedy fingers made him one of the world’s best known jazz pianists, died at age 82. …

During an illustrious career spanning seven decades, Peterson played with some of the biggest names in jazz, including Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie. He is also remembered for touring in a trio with Ray Brown on bass and Herb Ellis on guitar in the 1950s. …

Duke Ellington referred to him as “Maharajah of the keyboard,” while Count Basie once said “Oscar Peterson plays the best ivory box I’ve ever heard.” … Read full obituary

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) — Singer-songwriter Dan Fogelberg, famed for the soaring vocals and elegant instrumentation of tunes such as “Longer” and “A Love Like This,” died on Sunday, three years after being diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. He was 56. …

Fogelberg, a native of Peoria, Illinois, broke into the music industry in the early 1970s, at a time when it was embracing introspective songwriting, or “soft rock,” by such acts as the Eagles and America. …

His most recent release, “Full Circle,” came out in 2003. The following year, he revealed that he had been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer, and urged men over the age of 50 to get tested for the disease. … Read full obituary

Ike Turner, whose role as one of rock’s critical architects was overshadowed by his ogrelike image as the man who brutally abused former wife Tina Turner, died Wednesday at his home in suburban San Diego. He was 76. …

Turner managed to rehabilitate his image somewhat in later years, touring around the globe with his band the Kings of Rhythm and drawing critical acclaim for his work. He won a Grammy in 2007 in the traditional blues album category for “Risin’ With the Blues.”

But his image is forever identified as the drug-addicted, wife-abusing husband of Tina Turner. He was hauntingly portrayed by Laurence Fishburne in the movie “What’s Love Got To Do With It,” based on Tina Turner’s autobiography.

In a 2001 interview with The Associated Press, Turner denied his ex-wife’s claims of abuse and expressed frustration that he had been demonized in the media while his historic role in rock’s beginnings had been ignored. … Read full obituary

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The death last month of Kevin Dubrow, lead singer for the 1980s heavy metal band Quiet Riot, has been ruled an accidental cocaine overdose. Clark County coroner spokeswoman Samantha Charles confirmed the cause Monday after toxicology results were received Monday.

Dubrow was found dead Nov. 25 at his Las Vegas home. He was 52. … Read full story

See also:
Quiet Riot lead singer Kevin DuBrow, 52

Kevin DuBrow, the lead singer of the 1980s heavy metal band Quiet Riot, has died, CNN has confirmed. He was 52.

DuBrow died at his home in Las Vegas, Nevada, according to TMZ.com. The Clark County coroner’s office was examining the body to determine the cause of death, according to TMZ. …

Quiet Riot hit the top of the charts with its 1983 album, “Metal Health,” considered by some sources as the first heavy metal album to hit No. 1. The album was driven by the group’s cover of Slade’s “Cum on Feel the Noize,” which hit the Top 40.

The band’s other hits included “Bang Your Head (Metal Health)” and another Slade cover, “Mama Weer All Crazee Now.” … Read full obituary

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (AP) — George Osmond, father of the famous singing family The Osmond Brothers, has died. He was 90.

Osmond died Tuesday morning at home, likely from natural causes related to his age as he had not been ill, family spokesman Kevin Sasaki told The Associated Press. Additional details and an official cause of death were not immediately available. …

George Osmond married his wife, Olive, on December 1, 1944. She died in 2004.

The couple were the parents of nine children, many of whom became singing stars. … Read full obituary

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Olive Osmond, Osmond Brothers’ mother, 79