The Wall

People Who Died - June, 2026

We are through June and headed into the dog-days of summer, and looking at the forecast, I mean dog days, which I love. What I don’t love is that my Mets suck. They did fire the manager which I am glad about. He was a really nice guy and a class act but the bottom line, when you are being paid money to motivate players and they continually underperform, you’ve gotta go. I never understand why fans feel bad for these firings. He has made millions and will be paid millions to do nothing until his contract ends. He should enjoy himself. I’ll take his getting fired to count his millions over my life any day. And to those who say he is a scapegoat, I beg to differ. He was given decent players and could not get them to perform as well as the back of their baseball cards say they can perform. As the manager of a team, it is your job to get the most, not the least, out of your players. And I don’t want to hear that he was a good guy. Sometimes, the boss has to be a prick. He didn’t get the job to win a nice-guy competition; he was hired to win baseball games. You don’t have to be a horse’s ass, but you need to know what buttons to push to get the most out of your players. He wasn’t pushing the right buttons, so he gets to hang at the beach and be paid for it. Not bad in my book, and he’s in a much better position than those you are about to read about.

Music is much more democratized today than it was when I was young. Now, anyone with Apple Logic Pro, or even the lesser Garage Band, can make a pretty damned good record that they can get on i-tunes and market through the internet on Tick Tok or other platforms. Back in the day, you got what record executives’ thought was good and got behind, which meant the selection was far more limited. That said, I almost prefer the old way because I simply cannot keep up with all the music that is available, and albums like Physical Graffiti, Sticky Fingers, Born to Run, Graceland, or 5150 (that was too easy Tom), don’t seem to rise up from the vast array of music that is put out there by every Tom, Dick & Harry with a computer and a guitar, and sometimes not even a guitar. Now with AI tunes, people who try to keep their finger on the pulse of music don’t stand a chance. I write this because one of the people who curated music for the masses for years and years, Clive Davis, died this month at 94. Davis was a kid from Crown Heights, Brooklyn who lost both his parents, about a year apart, when he was still a teenager. He went to NYU and Harvard Law School, both on a scholarship, while living with a sister in Bayside, Queens. Thus, he is a true, outer-boro guy. Bored with law firm life, he went to work for a CBS subsidiary, Columbia Records, where he rose through the ranks, eventually signing acts like Janis Joplin along with Big Brother and the Holding Company; Blood, Sweat & Tears; Whitney Houston; Alecia Keys; Jennifer Hudson; Billy Joel; Bruce Springsteen; Earth, Wind & Fire; Pink Floyd; and Aerosmith, amongst others. He helped revitalize the careers of Carlos Santana and Rod Stewart and for years and years, cultivated hit after hit from group after group. He was not a behind-the-desk kind of guy but got heavily involved in the records and particular songs that his artists put out. He often picked producers and songwriters to pair with his artists, ensuring success for their careers. CBS fired Davis for financial improprieties, and he started Arista Records where he cultivated a roster of artists that rivaled those he signed to Columbia Records. After a great run at Arista, he started J Records (using his middle initial for the name) and continued on which his success. Perhaps what Davis was best known for was his Grammy parties which were legion. If you weren’t invited, you were like me – a nobody. Bruce Springsteen said of him, “at 22 years old, he changed my life when he signed me to Columbia Records.” Barry Manilow, who worked with Davis for years, and had had disputes with the executive wrote, “yes, some would say it’s business but to Clive, it never was. It was family and I was honored to be part of his.” He was the last of a dying breed which included Ahmet Ertegun, Berry Gordy, Chris Blackwell, and Mo Austin. Of them, Clive was at the top, although Ertegun was a close second in my book. We are already missing guys like them.

We move from music to money, which isn’t really a leap at all given it’s called the music business. Also, one of the world’s biggest money regulators, Alan Greenspan, who died this month at 100, was also an accomplished jazz musician. For four presidents over a span of two decades, Alan Greenspan was the chairman of the Federal Reserve. It is the Fed Chief’s job, largely through setting interest rates, to keep the economy from overheating or underperforming. Greenspan was pretty adept at it, navigating economic downturns and terrorist attacks, yet keeping the economy chugging along. With a libertarian bent, he tried not to be too intrusive. Some would say his aversion to regulation led to the 2008 mortgage crisis that caused so many to lose so much, but I chalk that up to stupidity and greed, which are two things that cause lots of problems. In deference to Greenspan, you can’t fix stupid. Born and raised in New York, he went to Julliard and played the clarinet and saxophone. He played in the Woody Herman Band. He also eventually got a PhD in economics at NYU. He worked at Brown Brothers Harriman and then at his own firm with William Townsend. He was Richard Nixon’s coordinator of domestic policy and was Ford’s chairman on the Council of Economic Advisers. Reagan made him the Fed Chair, and he stayed through Bush, Clinton, and Bush, an extremely long tenure. I could go on about his professional exploits but let’s face it, economics and fiscal policy, while important, are extremely boring, and you all have better things to do. Suffice it to say he was accomplished but, like many giants in any field, his time at the Fed has been closely scrutinized and depending on who you talk to, he was either great or terrible. I stand on the nearly great, with the occasional stumble, side of the fence, which, given his longevity, shakes him out as pretty great. He was a bit of a ladies’ man, once squiring Barbara Walters around town and then marrying Andrea Mitchell, with whom he discussed antitrust policy on their first date. He knew that his words were carefully followed for signals about the economy and spoke very carefully. However, leading up to the dot.com bubble, Greenspan warned of “irrational exuberance.” His words went generally unheeded and we paid an economic price. He did not note the irrational exuberance relative to the mortgage crisis and we paid a price there too but as stated, I doubt either were his fault. The BBC referred to Greenspan as “the architect of the modern American economy,” which ain’t bad. Not sure, though, that our economy is modern any longer. It’s something. Just not modern. Beware irrational exuberance.

Back to music. The Blood Sweat & Tears that most people know was drastically different from the band that was formed by Al Kooper and others. Kooper had been in the Blues Project but always wanted to be in a horn band. Danny Kalb of the Blues Project rejected the notion of a horn section, so Kooper left and with Bobby Colomby (a great drummer), bassist Jim Fielder, and guitarist Steve Katz, formed Blood Sweat & Tears. Randy Brecker was in the original horn section. After their first album, Child is the Father to Man, Colomby and Katz then ousted Kooper and went about to find a new singer and sound for the band. Enter David Clayton Thomas who died this month at 84. He was recommended to Colomby by Judy Collins, the folk singer. Thomas was born in England but raised in Canada. His father was an abusive alcoholic and Clayton Thomas, who was born David Henry Thomsett, left home at 15, committed all sorts of petty crimes, was in and out of juvenile detention centers and prison and was headed nowhere. In an Ontario prison he picked up the guitar and took to music. Out of prison, he changed his name to Clayton-Thomas to put his crime riddled youth behind him; was in bands; played with Ronnie Hawkins, whose band the Hawks morphed into the Band; and made a name for himself. He moved to New York, met Collins, auditioned for BS&T and his career took off from there. The band had also considered Alex Chilton, Stephen Stills and Laura Nyro for the position. With the newly revamped band, there were a string of hits such as “Spinning Wheel,” You’ve Made Me So Very Happy,” “And When I Die,” “God Bless the Child,” Lucretia Mac Evil,” and more. Clayton Thomas had a strong rock voice but could sing jazz and sing with feeling on some of BS&T’s more musical tunes. He was versatile and charismatic as a front man. The band played Woodstock, and large arenas. Their first album with Clayton Thomas out front on vocals, released in 1969, and entitled simply Blood Sweat & Tears, topped the Billboard charts and received a Grammy for Best Album in 1970. Clayton Thomas’ past came to affect the band in an odd way. He had once been deported from the U.S. and with his criminal record, he was subject to deportation again. The Department of State was sponsoring a tour of Eastern European cities and essentially blackmailed BS&T to join the show, otherwise Clayton Thomas would face repercussions. They did the tour in 1970, and it proved wildly unpopular with the fans who viewed any alliance with the Government, especially the Nixon Government, blasphemous. This was compounded by an agreement to play at Caesars Palace in Vegas which was deemed by fans to be a sell-out. The Eastern European tour and its aftermath were the subject of a documentary, “What the Hell Happened to Blood Sweat & Tears.” Clayton Thomas left the band in 1972 citing burnout and was replaced at first with Bobby Doyle and then Jerry Fisher. He returned to the band in 1975 but by then, the flame had burned out. He did have success with solo projects throughout his life but never as big as the apex of BS&T. You make me so very happy.

Peabo Bryson, whose smooth voice became a soul sensation, especially when paired with women vocalists, died this month at 75. He also had success singing on Disney scores such as “Beauty and the Beast” (with Celine Dion) and Aladdin, where he sang “a Whole New World,” with Regina Belle. Bryson also paired with Roberta Flack, Natalie Cole and others. With hits such as “It’s Just A Matter of Time,” “Underground Music,” “I can Make it Better,” and “If Ever I’m in Your Arms Again,” he was a constant on the Billboard Soul and R&B charts. Raised on a farm in South Carolina, his mother nurtured him musically by taking him to see folks like Little Richard and Sam Cooke. At a young age he could match them note for note. He won an amateur singing contest when he was 12, and music became his life. He resisted attempts to give his music more edge and to move him from his place as the voice of love. Why should he have? It worked for him.

I am not a real fan of morning television, largely because I would rather lie in bed than watch forced joviality and soft news. Therefore, I didn’t see much of Gene Shalit, who died this month at 100. That said, on the Today Show, where he was a mainstay for nearly 40 years, Shalit was impossible to miss. His New York Times obit described hm as “a composite caricature of Groucho Marx, William Howard Taft, and a Jim Henson puppet.” He was a movie and book reviewer and overall commentator on our culture. He was irreverent, blunt, witty, and self-deprecating. In critiquing the Burt Reynolds movie “The Longest Yard,” he reported that “it should be penalized half the distance to the goal – twice.” He was not one to mince words and his candor was refreshing. Born in New York, he was raised in Newark and Morristown, New Jersey where I presently hang my hat. His look, with his hair, mustache and bowties, was unmistakable. He wrote for his Morristown High School paper, was Dick Clark’s press agent, wrote for Cosmopolitan, Glamour, McCalls and the New York Times. From 1970 to 1982, he did a daily feature on NBC radio. In 1973 he switched over to the Today Show, and his approximately 37-year tenure there has been about as long as any person survived a single show. He was parodied as Gene Scallop, a seafood critic on “SpongeBob SquarePants.” When he finally signed off in 2010 to head into retirement he said, “It’s enough already.” To the nation, I am not sure it was.

Ron LaPread of the Commodores died this month at 75. Never heard of him? That’s because he’s the bass player and no one ever knows the bass player. He doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. I have a Wikipedia page for god’s sake. LaPread, born in Tuskegee, Alabama, was playing keyboards in a band when he was approached by Lionel Ritchie, whose bass player was drafted to go to the Vietnam War. Ritchie asked him if he knew a bass player and according to his New York Times obit, he said, “I’m the baddest-ass player in Tuskegee.” Ritchie made an appointment for him to audition which gave him a few days to learn the instrument, because he had never picked up a bass. He learned the bass line to the James Brown tune “Cold Sweat,” and when he made it to the audition and realized they didn’t expect him to read music, he knew he was in. He was with the band for “Brick House,” “Easy,” and “Three Times a Lady.” Ritchie left the band in 1982, but LaPread stayed until 1986 when he moved with his wife to New Zealand. He occasionally played with Mr. Ritchie and the Commodores when they made it to New Zealand. He is credited with giving the band its funky sound and slapping the bass, which is something he started when his fingers hurt too much. The style caught on. Ritchie was quoted as saying that if he could have one bass player for life it would be LaPread. He was “mighty, mighty just lettin’ it all hang out.”

I know nothing about astronomy, and I believe that is true of many. I can recall as a kid pointing out all sorts of constellations to people I knew, claiming to be able to identify them in the sky. Most people agreed with me, claiming to see, for instance, Orion’s Belt, when I pointed it out to them, even though I had no idea what I was pointing to. It was all bullshit. I couldn’t see it and neither could they. Try it sometime, it will work. Anyway, with as little as I know, I have heard of the Hale-Bopp comet. One of the guys who first identified it, Dr. Alan Hale, died this month at 68. In 1975, Dr. Hale took his rather large telescope out of his garage in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, a town loved by star-gazers due to its lack of light pollution (that would mean it’s really dark there), pointed it to the sky and noticed that there was an odd fuzzy object in the sky where there never was one before. He followed it for a few hours, and it was moving, thereby suggesting to the astronomer that it was a comet. He sent an e-mail to the Central Bureau of Astronomical Telegrams, where, if you are in the know about these things, you point out anomalies in the galaxies. Apparently, a few hours after he sent the e-mail, another guy, Thomas Bopp, who was checking out the sky in Arizona, sent the organization a telegram noting the same object. The next day, those who control the naming rights to these sorts of things, agreed that it was indeed a comet and that it should be named Hale-Bopp, after the first two guys to recognize and report it. After all, Halley’s comet was named after Edmond Halley. The Hale-Bopp comet was pretty far away when first spotted, but astronomers estimated it to be about 80 miles wide. By 1996, it was visible to the naked eye and stayed visible for about 18 months, making it the most viewed comet. It came within 120 million miles of Earth so no real concern that it would come crashing down on us. It is not visible now but expect it to return in 4385. Not sure I’ll be here then. Halley’s comet, a much more available comet, will be back in 2061. Doubt I’ll get to see that one again either. The religious cult, Heaven’s Gate, not named for the horrendous Hollywood flop, believed that a spaceship traveling in the Hale-Bopp comet’s wake, would beam up its members for some type of extraterrestrial, eternal salvation. When the comet was near, 39 Heaven’s gate members put on their matching black Nike’s and swallowed some sort of hemlock, killing themselves. According to a report in the New York Times, “the timing of the suicides was probably related to the arrival of the Hale-Bopp comet, which members seemed to regard as a cosmic emissary beckoning them to another world.” I had a similar pair of Nikes, but I only remember drinking a beer. Anyway, it all seems like a lot to go thorough to get a celestial being to be named after you. For about $89.00 at the Star Registry, they’ll name one just for me.

I do not believe I ever heard of James Burrows who died this month at 85, but he is responsible for some great television. In addition to creating the sitcom Cheers, he directed over 1,000 episodes of shows, including “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Taxi,” “Frasier,” “Friends,” (which he also helped cast), “The Big Bang Theory”,” and my favorite among them, “The Bob Newhart Show,” (the Suzanne Pleshette version). He received 47 Emmy nominations, winning 11 times. As a director of sitcoms, he was highly sought after, and highly paid, which is what you hope to be in that field. He was the son of the Broadway playwright and director, Abe Burrows, who helped create “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” (the movie version, starring Robert Morse, which I saw at Radio City), and “Guys and Dolls.” Burrows attended Oberlin College and Yale’s School of Drama. Lacking any real ability in front of the camera, he sought work behind it, landing a job at MTM productions where he got to direct “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” After that, he basically was involved in nearly every successful sitcom for a thirty-year stretch. The list, too long to replicate here, includes an impressive array of hit shows. He had a perspective on life that is too often lacking. He was quoted as saying, “I have a fun clause in my contract, if I’m not having fun, I can leave.” A contractual clause to live by.

Bob Czech, a friend of mine and a great public servant died this month after years of suffering with ALS. He was the first American to have a Synchron’s brain-computer interface implanted in his brain. It permitted him to converse by using his eyes to activate a keyboard. He fought like hell against a terrible disease but never lost his sense of humor. I can only stand in awe of people like him. So for Bob Czech, get off your asses and enjoy this Summer.