The Wall

People Who Died- April, 2026

Generally, April is a good month for Mets fans because we haven’t been able to mount too many losses early in the season. Not so this year. Already looking forward to football where it will take three weeks for my Jets to be out of it. In the meantime, gaze upon some of the great people we lost this month.

Dave Mason, one of the founding members of Traffic, who went on to have a storied solo career, died this month at 79. He left the band after the first album, and although he returned for some of the second album, he was out before some of Traffic’s bigger records were released. Mason and Steve Winwood had a tortured relationship. In his autobiography, “Only You Know and I Know,” Mason wrote that Winwood kicked him out of Traffic sating, “I don’t like the way you write, I don’t like the way you sing, I don’t like the way you play.” Pretty straightforward, I would say. Mason went on to record some successful solo works, including “Alone Together. He played with the Spencer Davis Group, singing on the hits, “Gimmie Some Lovin’,” and “I’m a Man.” He played with the Rolling Stones (“Street Fightin’ Man), Jimi Hendrix’ “All Along the Watchtower,” George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass,” and McCartney’s single, “Listen What the Man Said.” He had musical alliances with Cass Elliot, Leon Russell, Graham Nash, David Crosby, and Fleetwood Mac, amongst others. Although his song “Feelin’ Alright,” which he recorded with Traffic wasn’t an instant hit, it has been a hit for others such as Joe Cocker, and has been covered by groups as wide ranging as the Jackson 5 and Grand Funk Railroad. His song “Only You Know and I Know, was a hit for Delaney and Bonnie, with whom he played. He was also in an early version of Derek and the Dominoes and did some early sessions for “Layla,” although I do not believe he made the final cuts on the album. His hit “We Just Disagree,” has also been covered by numerous artists. He even owned a guitar company for a time. He was litigious, suing his record companies and filing bankruptcies, which permitted him to get out of bad contractual relationships. Feelin’ Alright.

While the Dave Masons of the world, who write songs and front the bands, get much of the adulation, it is the studio musicians who often give us great musical memories but are, for the most part, unknown. One of those unknown’s, who we have all heard, Wayne Moss, died this month at 88. He played on records made by Patsy Cline, Waylon Jennings, Lorretta Lynn, Joan Baez, Steve Miller, Kris Kristofferson, and Linda Ronstadt, among others. It is him playing guitar on Ms. Lynn’s “Stand by Your Man,” Roy Orbison’s “Oh Pretty Woman,” and Ms. Parton’s “Jolene,” and “Coat of Many Colors.” He is also on Dylan’s “I Want You.” He was an A-lister session musician in Nashville, where everyone is a musician, so to get to the top is quite a steep climb. In 1961 he started Cinderella Sound, a studio in Nashville that is the longest operating studio in the town. He formed his own bands, Area Code 615, and Barefoot Jerry, with session players. Of the exclusivity of his Cinderella Studio, he once quipped, “we’re not even in the phonebook, you know. So, unless you know somebody that knows somebody, you can’t even get in here.” Sounds like the place he’s looking to go now.

In 1963, along with Nawang Gombu, his sherpa, Jim Whittaker became the first American to summit Everest. He died this month at 97. He grew up in the sightline of the Cascade Mountains in Seattle, and hiking and climbing was a passion. In addition to his Everest exploits (in 1990, he led a culturally diverse team to the top to promote international peace), Whittaker was the first American to summit, K2, the world’s second highest peak. He also led Robert F. Kennedy (not the present HHS secretary who apparently likes to study racoon genitalia) up Mount Kennedy, a Canadian peak named in honor of his brother, the 35^th President. He became close with Kennedy and was a pallbearer at his funeral when he suffered a fate similar to his brother’s. He also led a contingent of handicapped climbers (blind, deaf and one legged) up Mt. Ranier, which at 14,100 feet is the highest peak in the State of Washington. In addition to his mountaineering, he was the CEO of REI, the recreational retail co-op. He started at the company as its only employee in 1955. As it grew, he took on more responsibility and was named the CEO in 1971. He led the expansion of the company, against pushback, which led to incredible sales. The company now has 195 outlets throughout the U.S. Working for an outdoor company afforded him the ability to take long stretches of time off for his mountaineering. As it was a co-op, there was no stock, so unlike other CEO’s, he did not become rich on options. When he left the company in 1979, after 25 years of service, he received a severance payment of $52,000. He did get a lifetime 30% discount on all purchases. Take that Jeff Bezos.

Oftentimes, the best musicians are people you don’t really know or hear about much. Guys like Danny Gattin and Roy Buchanan, and a guy my friend John Farmer wrote about, Danny DeGennaro (check out a good read “Way Too Fast: An American Reckoning: The Life and Music of Danny DeGennaro” – yes, two colons in the title, which may have had something to do with sales). Well, this month we lost another guitarist who didn’t gain EVH-type stardom, Wayne Perkins, who struck his last chord at 74. Perkins toured with the likes of Joe Cocker, Leon Russel, Roger McGuinn, and Percy Sledge, amongst others. At 17 he was signed by the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio as a session player for $100.00 per week. It was during that period that he was asked to join Lynyrd Skynyrd and turned them down. A declination that probably saved him from a plane crash that happened the following year. He recorded with Bob Marley, Joni Mitchell (he was on “Court and Spark”), Levon Helm, Delbert McClinton, and on the Rolling Stones album “Black and Blue.” The Stones considered him as a replacement for Mick Taylor but he lost out to Ron Wood, because, in the words of Keith Richard, “Ronnie was English.” Tough Darts. He also played with another lesser-known, great guitarist, Lonnie Mack. Of his near misses with greatness, he said that had he cashed in “I’d probably be a dead millionaire.” He constantly toured with bands, put out albums, and while not dying as a millionaire, I would have traded places with him in a second.

Every one of us, at some time in our lives, wanted to waltz into the boss’ office and tell him to take this job and shove it. Well, the guy who probably made millions writing a song with that title, David Allen Coe, died this month at 86. I have to be careful with that number because when used in certain ways it could get me indicted. Coe was a Country outlaw, singer, songwriter. Someone once told me he was a despicable person, and he may have been at times, but that was part of the persona of the Country music outlaw. In addition to “Take This Job and Shove It,” which was a hit for Johnny Paycheck, he also penned “Would You Lay With Me (In a Field of Stone),” which was a hit for Tanya Tucker. He wrote songs for Tammy Wynette, George Jones, Johnny Cash and Kid rock. The song, though, that I really liked the most, was one he sang but did not write, “You Never Even Call Me By My Name.” Steve Goodman and John Prine wrote it. Coe was born in Akron, Ohio where another Country star, Chrissie Hynde was born. Okay, she wasn’t really Country, but she was born in Akron. He was the first to record “Tennessee Whiskey,” another tune he did not write, and which others made famous. Coe spent a good part of his twenties and early thirties in correctional institutions, and not as a guard. He did some time with Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, who encouraged him to write songs, which he did, and that was sort of his salvation. After getting out of the Big House, he lived in a hearse he parked outside the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, and he sang in the streets. He eventually got signed to a record deal, put out his first album, Penitentiary Blues, and did a tour opening for Grand Funk Railroad. He had tax problems and was indicted and convicted of tax evasion for which he received three years’ probation and a whopping bill from the IRS. In 2000, he toured with Kid Rock. Quite a life. You don’t have to call me darlin’, darlin’.

Don Schlitz, another person you probably never heard of, died at 73. While you may not know his name, you may have heard his songs. He penned “The Gambler,” for Kenny Rogers; co-wrote “Forever and Ever, Amen,” for Randy Travis; and “When You Say Nothing at All” which was a hit for both Keith Whitley and Alison Krauss and Union Station. He won two Grammys, four ASCAP Writer of the Year awards, and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. That’s a lot of Halls of Fame, and I left out the lesser known, North Carolina Music Hall of Fame, because face it, no one cares about that one. Even President George Bush commissioned Schlitz to write the theme song for the “Point of Light” program. He had a long working relationship with Mary Chapin Carpenter and wrote a number of her top-ten country music hits. “Every gambler knows that the secret to survivin’ is knowin’ what to throw away and knowing what to keep. ‘Cause every hand’s a winner and every hand’s a loser, and the best you can hope for is to die in your sleep.” Hope he did just that.

Nedra Talley Ross, the last surviving member of the Ronettes, survives no longer, having succumbed to death this month at 80. Along with her cousins, Veronica Bennett (Ronnie Spector) and Estelle Bennett, formed the Ronettes, who, fueled by Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, created such classic hits as “Be My Baby,” “Baby I love You,” “Like Walkin’ In the Rain,” and “Sleigh Ride.” She began singing with her cousins when she was 14, first as the Darling Sisters, then as Ronnie and the Relatives and then as the Ronettes. They won a talent contest at the famed Apollo Theatre, had some minor radio play on New York stations, both of which gave them the gumption to contact Spector, who, while a nut-job, and wildly overbearing and abusive, was a genius. He turned the three into a timeless musical juggernaut, pumping out hit after hit. By the time Talley Ross was 18, the Ronettes were opening for the Rolling Stones. It was Keith Richards who introduced them at their induction into the to the much-hated-by-me, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The pressures of fame and the lunacy of working with Spector broke up the Ronettes. Talley Ross married a radio DJ and at a church service, she claimed to have a vision and was born again. She had a post-Ronettes career as a personality on Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network. From Phil Spector to Pat Robertson. Not sure which is the lesser of the evils. Whoa-ho-ho-ho.

You know Donny and Marie, but how many of you know of Alan Osmond, who died this month at 76? Sort of the Tito Jackson of the Osmonds, Alan was actually in the Osmond Brothers before Donny and Marie, who changed them from the Osmond Brothers to just the Osmonds. The Osmond Brothers, Alan, Wayne, Merrill, and Jay, got their break being booked on the “Andy Williams Show.” They were a hit and performed regularly. They also went on the road with Williams and opened as well for Phyllis Diller and Jimmy Durante (Good night Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are). The big hit the Osmond Brothers had was “One Bad Apple.” They sold millions of albums but were eventually eclipsed by Donny and Marie. They kept it up, however, and even put out a concept album inspired by their Mormon religion. It didn’t do all that well in the U.S. (it went gold in the U.K.) and they never recaptured the fame of their earlier work. Alan produced a yearly music festival in Provo, Utah and produced music for others. He directed a music video for Marie’s Country hit, “There’s No Stopping Your Heart.” While not the star of the family, He had a good career.

Sid Kroft, one half of Sid and Marty Kroft, known for children’s shows such as “H.R. Pufnstuf,” died this month at 96. I can’t cop to ever having watched anything they did but I certainly heard about them. Their shows never ran long in first production (only seventeen episodes of “Pufnstuf” were made) but have become staples in syndication. Sid was born in Montreal and got into puppeteering as a kid. He got into vaudeville and by the 50’s, he was opening for Judy Garland in Las Vegas. He and his brother had an at-least R rated puppet show with scantily clad puppets. Don’t ask me why people paid money to see it but hey, it was a living. They worked for Six Flags; Ringling Brothers; and the Ice Capades. Television was where they wanted to be, and after producing the “Donny and Marie” variety show, they landed on children’s programming. In addition to Pufnstuf, they produced, “Land of the Lost,” and “Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.” All their shows had fantastic premises such as two brothers playing by the sea who befriend a sea monster who had been cast out of his dysfunctional family for not being scary enough. The boys hide Sigmund in their clubhouse, but he generally does something zany that the brothers have to react to, so that Sigmund’s existence is not uncovered. Sounds sort of like “Alf” to me. The question always was, what was Sid on when he created these stories? With a name like Puffnstuf, the answer was pretty obvious. He told the Washington Post: “If we took all the drugs that we’ve been accused of doing all these years, we wouldn’t be here answering your questions.” Rather, he told the New York Times, “when you’re nuts you’ve got to go nuts all the way,” and that was his guiding maxim. Their shows were wild and grandiose, colorful, complex, with a certain sensibility, and unusual heroes. Sort of like the world we occupy.

Davey Lopes, a long-time Dodger, who played second base in a storied infield that included Steve Garvey, Ren Cey and Bill Russell, died at 80. Lopes, a surehanded fielder, tore up the bases and was a four-time All-Star. In his ten years with the Dodgers, they won four NL pennants and in 1981 captured the World Series. He led the league in stolen bases in 1975 and 76, and won a gold glove in ‘78. After the Dodgers, he went to Oakland, the Chicago Cubs, and the Houston Astros. After his playing days, Lopes coached for the Texas Rangers, Baltimore Orioles, San Diego Padres, Philadelphia Phillies, Washington Nationals, and the Dodgers. In between, he managed the Milwaukee Brewers from 2000 until 15 games into the 2002 season, when the team could not get on a winning track. That said, he spent 45 consecutive seasons in baseball. Quite a track record.

A few years ago, sneakers with wheels in the heels were all the rage with young kids. The Hula Hoops of their time. The inventor of the Heeley’s, Roger Adams, died this month at 73. The son of a roller rink operator, he hated his job and was going through a divorce when he was struck with the idea to incorporate a wheel in the heel of sneakers so that kids could shift their weight and start skating. He built a prototype in his friend’s workshop and started Heely’s, thus relieving himself from the job he did not like and undoubtedly pissing off his ex, because he didn’t have to share any of his new riches with her. The company sold millions of pairs of shoe-skates and went public, providing Adams with a good deal of wealth, seeing as how he cashed out while the fad was still popular. His invention provided kids with fun and doctors with a hole new class of patients. Although not quite as popular, they are still available at www.heelys.com. Break a leg.

Jerry Seinfeld does a great bit about how everything in the world is in a state of becoming garbage.

. Many of us, though, myself included, have some form of Collier Brothers syndrome where we hoard things. These are things that mean nothing to anyone but us. Plaques to us telling us how great a job we did. How many times have you seen someone with someone else’s plaques on the wall? Never. I have a box of them in my garage. For what? I have lots of other stuff in my garage that to anyone but me is garbage, and some of it is even garbage to me. But I am too lazy to go through it and toss it out. Because of that, my car sits in the driveway, while my garbage gets to occupy the garage. Many people, though, have it worse than me. I have a garage for my shit. They don’t, so they rent a storage space for their garbage. The only time they go to this storage space is to add to the pile, never to take anything out, other than perhaps the seasonal clothes. They are literally paying to store their garbage. According to the Wall Street Journal, 12% of Americans have storage facilities. People spend tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of their lives storing things like their college textbooks. It is a $60 billion industry, and it probably warehouses goods worth about $75.00. The rest is garbage no one wants. When we die, those left behind will have to deal with that garbage and, trust me, they will be cursing us, as they unceremoniously toss our treasured keepsakes, which to them is garbage, into the trash. Our last kick-in-the-ass to our family and friends. I write this screed because this month, we lost Darrel Sheets, one of the stars of “Storage Wars,” a show where the participants, like Mr. Sheets, bid on storage bins where people stopped paying the monthly bills, sift through the garbage, and try to find unsuspecting people to buy the garbage that comes out of these units. Mr. Sheets was 67. I suspect the producers of “Storage Wars,” are careful to screen out the storage units from drugs because narcotics, are, I figure, the only lucrative use for storage facilities. It would be unfair to have someone get a unit with old, moth eaten, dresses and Bob’s furniture from 1973, while someone else got 37 kilos of coke. That would be no contest. Mr. Sheets was on the show for 14 seasons, which might explain why he took his own life. That said, one rainy day I spent far too many hours watching back-to-back-to-back-to-back, you get the idea, episodes of “Storage Wars,” and I can state that watching people deal with garbage that is not your own, can be addicting. I would have been much more productive cleaning my own shit out of my own garage, but I was instead transfixed on other people’s junk. Mr. Sheets, whose nickname on the show was The Gambler, once paid $2,000 for a unit that contained over $20,000 worth of legitimate artwork, but I am not sure I believe that. He left the show in 2023 and opened an antiques store in Arizona. I guess one man’s junk is another man’s jewels. Don’t know if he was buried, or put in a unit on a monthly payment system.

I’ll end this month with a hero, Lionel Rosenblatt, who died at 82. Rosenblatt was a Foreign Service Officer who spent a lot of time in Vietnam. When we are in conflict with countries, we often use locals to assist us, as we did in Afghanistan. When we put our tails between our legs and leave, as we did in both Vietnam and more recently, Afghanistan, we often leave behind those who helped us, where they face retribution from the governments that comes to power, who those folks worked unsuccessfully on our behalf to defeat. In the days before the fall of what is now Ho Chi Minh City, but was then Saigon, our government was assisting high level folks flee the country before the fall, but was not doing much for folks who toiled on our behalf day-in-and -day-out. Enter Mr. Rosenblatt and his compatriot, Larry Johnstone. They flew into Vietnam unauthorized and, on a mission to save those who helped them over the years. When their higher-ups got wind of their “mission,” they forbade them from continuing, ordering them back to the States. Rosenblatt shaved and disguised himself and, with Johnstone, began contacting all of the folks with whom they worked, planning to get them out of the Country. The number was about 500. Some were out of contact, and some chose to stay, but as to most of the others, Rosenblatt and Johnstone were able to get them safely out of Vietnam. With assistance from a government contractor, they received some transportation and shoeboxes full of Vietnamese currency that was soon to be of no value, but which was still good for bribing soldiers, officials and others to obtain documents and safe passage for their colleagues to places like Guam, the Philippines, and ultimately to the United States. Rosenblatt and Johnstone themselves were on one of the last helicopters out of Saigon. Once home, Rosenblatt was summoned to meet with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger who he expected would fire his ass. However, after a mild scolding for disobeying orders, Kissinger told him he did a “wonderful and heroic job.” Rosenblatt recalled that Secretary Kissinger told him, “We left Vietnam without much honor, but you two guys acted honorably.” After his government service, Rosenblatt went on to spend most of the rest of his life working on behalf of refugees. As to the refugees he got safely out of Vietnam, word has it the Administration may be looking to deport them. Only kidding … I think.

That wraps up April. The next time I get out this rag, we’ll be seriously headed into the Summer months and hopefully Alex Cora will be managing my team.