Top Ten losses for 2023
What is the end of the year without a top ten list? These things are fraught with peril because so many people differ on who is the biggest, what is the best, and even what is the worst. But hey, it’s my list. You are free to publish your own in protest if you like, or berate me in the comments. I am sure there are some, not on the list, which will make you scratch your head. And you may be right. Remember, two years ago I left John Madden off and will suffer for that forever. Perhaps I am getting tougher in my criteria, or perhaps we lost so many great people that some had to be overlooked, having left us in a year with so many giants making for the exit. For some reason, though, this year’s top ten had as many as last year’s so go figure. Here we go.
14. Hobie Landreth. When you are the first Met to sign, you make any top ten list; even if you’re 14th.
13. Blair Tindall. When you are a classical oboist who wrote of cocaine fueled, classical musician sex parties, you deserve all the accolades you can get.
12. Sinead O’Connor. Irish talent coupled with Irish anger always make for an explosion of creativity.
11. This is a three-way tie. Gina Lollobrigida, Farrah Fawcett and Suzanne Sommers. What is a top ten list without sex symbols?
10. Nicholas Gray. The hot dog is so synonymous with America, this guy had to make it.
9. Jim Brown. A dicey personal life but a heckuva football player.
8. Tim Mccarver. A great ballplayer and an even better sports broadcaster. That, plus my mother would rise from the dead and berate me if I didn’t put him on the list as she loved his work.
7. Gordon Lightfoot. If you could read my mind.
6. Tina Turner. An amazing performer in a year where we lost too many amazing performers.
5. Henry Kissinger. Love him or hate him, he was a man of consequence in the world.
4. Harry Belafonte. A talented performer and a better human being and civil rights proponent.
3. Shane Macgowan. Irish talent coupled with Irish anger always make for an explosion of creativity.
2. Jeff Beck. Hands down the greatest guitarist of my lifetime. Sorry Tom.
1. Tony Bennett. He got four paragraphs. The Queen only got three. He was hands down the greatest interpreter of the American Songbook. His phrasing was nonpareil. Simply the best at what he did.
I agree 100% with your choice of the great Astoria boy, Tony Bennett, at #1! He was truly the last of the great singers of his era!