Tuesday 29 December 2009

At last, a festive celebrity death

You may disagree. It's Tim Hart, of Hart and Prior and Steeleye Span. A Christmas death is particularly poignant for this wonderful musician because Steeleye's biggest (though unrepresentative) hit was their recording of the medieval carol Gaudete.

Steeleye were a splinter of Fairport Convention, in the days when British folkies were inventing folk-rock. All the music stands up still. Hart seems to have had a difficult life since his musical career founded - several wives, ill health, the usual for a faded rock star, and he died at only 61.

Ben will really hate this.

3 comments:

Zoot Horn said...

A local black country hero died too. Dread Lester - one of my girlfriend's oldest friends and husband of one of her best friends. A talented musician from a talented Jamaican musical family, a beautiful tall - 6'7 - guy who did a lot for the local scene. Only 54. Even the Express & Star has something to say about him.
http://www.expressandstar.com/2009/12/30/music-man-dread-lester-dies-at-54/

Graham Quirk said...

Wasn't 'Gaudete' the one Alan Partridge sings along to on his way back from the owl sanctuary?

The Plashing Vole said...

Zoot - he must have been good for that rag to say something positive about a non-Aryan.

Graham: spot on. Your fund of quality pop-culture memories is brilliant.