In Memoriam|

Services for Bill will be held this Saturday morning, February 7th at the Mile High Church.

Bill Francoeur was a musical theatre composer and actor, who produced over 75 musicals for the amateur theatre market in a career spanning over 25 years.

Francoeur was a junior and senior high school teacher for ten years before turning to playwriting. His work includes the music and lyrics for the musical The Ghost & Mrs. Muir (2005), co-written with longtime collaborator Scott DeTurk, with a book by James Mellon. With DeTurk, Francoeur also created the musical Western Star, with book by Dale Wasserman, garnering California’s Elly Award for Best Original Work (1993). In 2002, his children’s musical, Oz!, was produced Off-Broadway.

Francoeur began to collaborate with playwright Tim Kelly in the mid-1980s, with whom he created Oz! and numerous other works.

Francoeur lived in Colorado and had three children.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Francoeur

From Fred Wolking on Facebook 02/02/15:
My friend Bill Francoeur passed on this morning.
We went through the best and the worst times together and the friendship never failed.

His service will be this Saturday, February 7th at the Mile High Church at 10 a.m.

My deepest condolences to Allie, Justin, Ryan, Laura and his family in New Hampshire.

I’m humble and grateful for all of people, music and fun that he brought into my life.

From Mark Derryberry on Facebook 02/02/15:
My heart breaks with the loss of my oldest and dearest recording friends today. Bill Francoeur and I recorded over 125 musicals for educational publishers for 30 years. The hundreds of hours recording the best musicians. Oh my God, we had some great times!! And he touched so many people and has inspired so many with his wonderful music. He will be greatly missed!

From Neil Haverstick on Facebook 02/02/15:
My friend and musical compadre Bill Francoeur died this morning, having never recovered from surgery. I played with him in Kahuna Beach Party last summer, a grand time. Wish him well in your thoughts… our time here is short, and our departure unsure…

From Dan Barnhart on Facebook 02/02/15:
Bill was my teacher in high school and was an inspiration to everyone in my class. He taught us how to rock but always made sure we respected ALL music and showed us how integral it is to having a full life. He will be missed.

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ROD McKUEN PASSES ON JANUARY 29th

Rodney Marvin “Rod” McKuen (April 29, 1933 – January 29, 2015) was an American singer-songwriter, musician and poet. He was one of the best-selling poets in the United States during the late 1960s. Throughout his career, McKuen produced a wide range of recordings, which included popular music, spoken word poetry, film soundtracks and classical music. He earned two Academy Award nominations and one Pulitzer nomination for his music compositions. McKuen’s translations and adaptations of the songs of Jacques Brel were instrumental in bringing the Belgian songwriter to prominence in the English-speaking world. His poetry deals with themes of love, the natural world and spirituality. McKuen sold over 100 million records and 60 million books worldwide, according to the Associated Press.

McKuen was born on April 29, 1933, in Oakland, California. Raised by his mother and stepfather, who was a violent alcoholic, McKuen ran away from home at the age of 11. He drifted along the West Coast, supporting himself as a ranch hand, surveyor, railroad worker, lumberjack, rodeo cowboy, stuntman, and radio disk jockey, always sending money home to his mother.

To compensate for his lack of formal education, McKuen began keeping a journal, which resulted in his first poetry and song lyrics. In the 1950s, McKuen worked as a newspaper columnist and propaganda script writer during the Korean War. He settled in San Francisco, where he read his poetry in clubs alongside Beat poets like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. He began performing as a folk singer at the famed Purple Onion. Over time, he began incorporating his own songs into his act. He was signed to Decca Records and released several pop albums in the late 1950s. McKuen also appeared as an actor in Rock, Pretty Baby (1956), Summer Love (1958), and the western Wild Heritage (1958). He also sang with Lionel Hampton’s band. In 1959, McKuen moved to New York City to compose and conduct music for the TV show The CBS Workshop.

In the early 1960s, McKuen moved to France, where he first met the Belgian singer-songwriter and chanson singer Jacques Brel. McKuen began to translate the work of this composer into English, which led to the song “If You Go Away” – an international pop-standard – based on Brel’s “Ne me quitte pas”. In the early 1970s, singer Terry Jacks turned McKuen’s “Seasons in the Sun”, based on Brel’s “Le Moribond”, into a best-selling pop hit. McKuen also translated songs by other French songwriters, including Gilbert Bécaud, Pierre Delanoé, Michel Sardou, and others.

In 1978, after hearing of Brel’s death, McKuen was quoted as saying, “As friends and as musical collaborators we had traveled, toured and written – together and apart – the events of our lives as if they were songs, and I guess they were. When news of Jacques’ death came I stayed locked in my bedroom and drank for a week. That kind of self-pity was something he wouldn’t have approved of, but all I could do was replay our songs (our children) and ruminate over our unfinished life together.”

In the late 1960s, McKuen began to publish books of poetry, earning a substantial following among young people with collections like Stanyan Street & Other Sorrows (1966), Listen to the Warm (1967), and Lonesome Cities (1968). His Lonesome Cities album of readings won a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Recording in 1968. McKuen’s poems were translated into eleven languages and his books sold over 1 million copies in 1968 alone. McKuen said that his most romantic poetry was influenced by American poet Walter Benton’s two books of poems. McKuen sold over 60 million books worldwide, according to the Associated Press.

McKuen wrote over 1,500 songs, which have accounted for the sale of over 100 million records worldwide according to the Associated Press. His songs have been performed by such diverse artists as Glenn Yarbrough, Barbra Streisand, Perry Como, Petula Clark, Waylon Jennings, The Boston Pops, Chet Baker, Johnny Cash, Pete Fountain, Andy Williams, the Kingston Trio, Percy Faith, the London Philharmonic, Dusty Springfield, Johnny Mathis, Al Hirt, Greta Keller, and Frank Sinatra.

In 1959, McKuen released a novelty single with Bob McFadden, under the pseudonym Dor on the Brunswick label, called “The Mummy”. In 1961, he had a hit single titled “Oliver Twist”. He collaborated with numerous composers, including Henry Mancini, John Williams, and Anita Kerr. His symphonies, concertos, and other orchestral works have been performed by orchestras around the globe. His work as a composer in the film industry garnered him two Academy Award nominations for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and A Boy Named Charlie Brown.

In 1967, McKuen began collaborating with arranger Anita Kerr and the San Sebastian Strings for a series of vocal pop albums, including The Sea (1967), The Earth (1967), The Sky (1968), Home to the Sea (1969), For Lovers (1969), and The Soft Sea (1970). In 1969, Frank Sinatra commissioned an entire album of poems and songs by McKuen; it was released under the title A Man Alone: The Words and Music of Rod McKuen. The album featured the song “Love’s Been Good to Me”, which become one of McKuen’s best-known songs.

In 1971, his song “I Think of You” was a major hit for Perry Como. Other popular McKuen compositions included “The World I Used to Know”, “Rock Gently”, “Doesn’t Anybody Know My Name”, “The Importance of the Rose”, “Without a Worry in the World”, and “Soldiers Who Want to Be Heroes”.

During the 1970s, McKuen began composing larger-scale orchestral compositions, writing a series of concertos, suites, symphonies, and chamber pieces for orchestra. His piece The City: A Suite for Narrator & Orchestra, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Music. He continued publishing a steady stream of poetry books throughout the decade. In 1977, he published Finding My Father, a chronicle of his search for information on his biological father. The book and its publicity helped make such information more readily available to adopted children.[citation needed] He also continued to record, releasing albums such as New Ballads (1970), Pastorale (1971), and the country-rock outing McKuen Country (1976).

McKuen retired from live performances in 1981. The following year, he was diagnosed with clinical depression, which he battled for much of the next decade. He continued to write poetry, however, and made appearances as a voice-over actor in The Little Mermaid and the TV series The Critic.

McKuen lived in Southern California with his brother and four cats in a large rambling Spanish house built in 1928, which housed one of the world’s largest private record collections. He died of respiratory arrest, a result of pneumonia, at a hospital in Beverly Hills, California, on January 29, 2015.

This article was shortened. Read the whole article here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_McKuen

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Other Notable Musicians’ Deaths…

February 2015

3: Mary Healy, 96, American actress and singer.

2: Joseph Alfidi, 65, American pianist, composer and conductor; The Jacka, 37, American rapper, shot [Another one? What’s happening here. . .]; Alekos Kitsakis (el), 81, Greek folk singer; Andriy Kuzmenko, 46, Ukrainian singer (Skryabin), traffic collision.

1: Aldo Ciccolini, 89, Italian-born French pianist.

January 2015

30: Don Covay, 76, American R&B singer and songwriter (“Chain of Fools”).

29: Maurizio Arcieri, 72, Italian singer (The New Dada, Krisma); Rod McKuen, 81, American poet, singer and songwriter (“Jean”, “Seasons in the Sun”), respiratory arrest;
Other Notable Musicians’ Deaths…

February 2015

3: Mary Healy, 96, American actress and singer.

2: Joseph Alfidi, 65, American pianist, composer and conductor; The Jacka, 37, American rapper, shot; Alekos Kitsakis (el), 81, Greek folk singer; Andriy Kuzmenko, 46, Ukrainian singer (Skryabin), traffic collision.

1: Aldo Ciccolini, 89, Italian-born French pianist.

January 2015

30: Don Covay, 76, American R&B singer and songwriter (“Chain of Fools”).

29: Maurizio Arcieri, 72, Italian singer (The New Dada, Krisma); Rod McKuen, 81, American poet, singer and songwriter (“Jean”, “Seasons in the Sun”), respiratory arrest; Paul Panhuysen, 80, Dutch composer; Israel Yinon, 59, Israeli conductor.

27: Magnus Eriksson, 58, Swedish tour manager (Van Morrison, Toto); Margot Moir, 55, Scottish-born Australian singer (The Moir Sisters).

From http://www.wikipedia.com

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