Backstage Pass

Danny Federici, the E Street Band's longtime keyboard player, died Thursday night at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center after a three-year battle with melanoma. He was 58.
"Danny and I worked together for 40 years - he was the most wonderfully fluid keyboard player and a pure natural musician," Bruce Springsteen said on his Web site. "I loved him very much...we grew up together."
Though Federici's organ and piano sounds may not have attracted as much attention as Clarence Clemons' sax solos or Little Steven's guitar riffs, they were just as important to the E Street Band sound. He will be missed.

Danny Federici takes a bow

Funeral services are set for tomorrow in Middletown, Ohio, for Hawthorne Heights guitarist Casey Calvert, who died in his sleep Saturday in Washington, D.C., while on tour with the band.

Calvert, 26, was known for his raucous screams and wild man antics onstage, but behind the scenes he was a sweet, personable guy with a great sense of humor. Calvert told me last year that he was proud that success hadn't changed his band or their personalities. "We're still idiots," he joked, as he thought about the possibility of the band landing a second gold album and a possible No. 1 debut.

Though his screams made him loudest on stage, Calvert was actually the quietest of the Dayton-based quintet, content to soak in the perqs of being an up-and-coming rocker and enjoy himself. At the Warped Tour stop at Nassau Coliseum this summer, Calvert was in rare form as his shrieks on "Ohio Is For Lovers" were loud enough to draw the attention of the entire festival.

An autopsy has been done, but no cause of death has been released. Calvert is survived by his wife, Ashley, his parents and three sisters. His family asks that memorial donations be made to Animal Friends Humane Society, 5225 Trenton Road, Trenton, OH 45067.

PHOTO: Hawthorne Heights, with Calvert on the right, from HawthorneHeights.com. 

Hilly Kristal, founder and owner of the influential Lower East Side club CBGB where punk flourished with The Ramones, Blondie and Talking Heads, died yesterday. He was 75.

Kristal died at Cabrini Medical Center, after a long battle with lung cancer, said his son, Mark Dana Kristal. Kristal's cancer battle coincided with his high-profile battle to keep his famous club open after a rent dispute with its landlord. That battle ended last year when CBGB lost its lease and closed after 33 years in the same location on the Bowery. 

" He was the mayor of The Bowery," said Scott Goodstein, a former employee and the coordinator of the Save CBGB campaign. "He knew everybody. He was the guy sitting behind the desk, willing to help everybody out. Tourists from overseas would come in and he would give them tours throughout the day so they could see the club. Most club owners you can't even find in the club. He would always be there, eating a sandwich from Katz’s, talking on the phone and giving a tour at the same time. This guy’s New York, man. They don't make guys like this any more."

MORE CBGB: Full obit / Patti Smith's tribute / AP obituary / CBGB dethroned /

James Brown, the "Godfather of Soul," the pioneer of funk and the rhythmic backbone of hip-hop, has been swaddled in his signature bejeweled fur cape for the final time.

Brown, known for his raucous stage shows as much as his bold hits "Sex Machine," "I Got You (I Feel Good)" and "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," died Monday morning at Emory Crawford Long Hospital in Atlanta, where he had been hospitalized Sunday with pneumonia. He was 73.

"James Brown changed music," said the Rev. Al Sharpton, who was part of Brown's tour entourage in the 1970s. "He made soul music a world music. What James Brown was to music in terms of soul and hip-hop, rap, all of that, is what Bach was to classical music. This is a guy who literally changed the music industry. He put everybody on a different beat, a different style of music. He pioneered it."

Concerts from the self-proclaimed "Hardest working man in show business" are the stuff of legend -- from his multiple spins, his swiveling hips and constantly twitching feet to the traditional ending, where Brown swoons from exhaustion, only to bounce back again.

Legendary singer James Brown dies [Newsday]

Ahmet Ertegun, the music executive who brought rhythm and blues to the mainstream and pushed the artistic boundaries of soul and rock as the founding chairman of Atlantic Records, died yesterday at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. He was 83.

Ertegun had been hospitalized since Oct. 29, when he fell backstage at the Beacon Theatre during a Rolling Stones concert. "He was in a coma and passed away today with his family at his bedside," Dr. Howard A. Riina, Ertegun's neurosurgeon at Weill Cornell Medical Center, said yesterday in a statement.

In a career that spanned nearly six decades, Ertegun was instrumental in building the careers of Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding, signing them to Atlantic and producing their records. Later, he would sign Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, Cream, Bette Midler and Sonny & Cher.

"The music community has lost a pioneer and an icon, and we have lost our father," Atlantic Records chairman and chief executive Craig Kallman said yesterday. "Ahmet changed the course of modern music and culture and he will live on through the timeless legacy of work that was created under his direction and care. Musicians loved him, because he truly loved them and spoke their language."

PHOTO: Ahmet Ertegun by Norman Jean Roy / Atlantic Records

R.I.P. Gerald Levert, 1966-2006

R&B crooner Gerald Levert Dies at 40 [Newsday]
"Soulful R&B superstar" [Plain Dealer]

"Casanova' on the jump

Punk rock's most diabolical toilet will never flush again - at least not in Manhattan.

By this time next week, CBGB, the Lower East Side dive that brought live music to the Bowery 33 years ago and birthed the U.S. punk and new-wave music scenes, will be as lifeless as Johnny Thunders. Or Jerry Nolan. Or ____________ (insert name of favorite dead punk star here). It's a real heartbreaker - we're not kidding. Little Steven Van Zandt, who spearheaded the fight to save CB's last year, isn't giving interviews about it; his press person said he is, in fact, "too heartbroken."

The club's official cause of death will be listed as "rent dispute"; a lengthy disagreement between CBGB and its landlord, the nonprofit homeless aid group Bowery Residents' Committee, could not be resolved.

Hilly Kristal, the venue's owner, chooses to remember the good times instead of the impending end.

Full story

PHOTO: Hilly Kristal and Little Steven during the fight to save CBGB by Associated Press.

On the jump, video of The Ramones doing "Rockaway Beach" at CBGB

Syd Barrett, the troubled talent who co-founded Pink Floyd but spent his last years in reclusive anonymity, has died, a spokeswoman for the band said Tuesday. He was 60.

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