Stephen Sondheim - d. November 26th 2021

They dim the lights

as you make your exit

with your usual flair,

note-perfect, 

sure of your lines,

the sum of all song.

Read about Stephen Sondheim here

 

Mick Rock - d. November 18th 2021

The past is a fast-blurring photo,

a radio slowly drifting off-station.

My shelves heave with long-

players, your covers a peepshow,

your images rock's bright blazon,

bending white light around song.

Read about Mick Rock here

Wilbur Smith - d. November 13th 2021

My father quartered the veldt

at your side, shot at big game, 

missed, dug for diamonds, 

found none, searched for 

the place where the lion feeds, 

lived the hard fiction of real men.

Read about Wilbur Smith here

Gerald Sinstadt - d. November 10th 2021

Resist cliché. Find ways 

to say what we see 

but don’t see:

the art in technique, 

the beauty in graft, 

the game as theatre, 

the sport as life.

Read about Gerald Sinstadt here

Clifford Rose - d. November 6th 2021

We knew it was only an act, 

but oh how you breathed life 

into death, banality into evil,

smiling that unsmile, a study 

in terrible duty, quiet horror.

Read about Clifford Rose here

Andrew Barker - d. November 6th 2021

We follow 

your state ritual: 

kick drum boom,

low-pass filter,

white noise snare,

hi-hat skitter, claves,

squelch, handclaps,

and the joy of acid.

Read about 808 State here

Lionel Blair - d. November 4th 2021

Still on air, your slight figure,

all alone on the darkened stage,

soft-shoeing it through the taps,

drops and brushes of a routine

begun as a child, so quietly 

thrilling from overture to finale

that you could not bear to finish.

Read about Lionel Blair here

Leslie Bricusse - d. October 19th 2021

Who can take a story,

gild its wings with charm,

burnish its quintessence

till it glitters in the eye,

turn choruses to poems

of the playground, of the 

cradle, of the screen?

Read about Leslie Bricusse here

Alan Hawkshaw - d. October 16th 2021

Play him out with brightness,

with stings and jingles, tunes 

and not-quite-tunes. Sing him

without words in little anthems

of the inconsequential world.

Read about Alan Hawkshaw here

Rick Jones - d. October 8th 2021

The moving finger plays 

and, having played,

moves on to a place 

where songs are whimsy,

angels are made of paper 

and life is just a length of string.

Read about Rick Jones here

John Challis - d. September 19th 2021

We can hear you, Aubrey,

way down here in the Nag,

horse-trading with angels,

sealing the deal with a laugh

like a tommy gun, 

one part adenoids,

three parts scorn.

Read about John Challis here

Melvin Van Peebles - d. September 21st 2021

What was sweet about 

your baadasssss song

was not the song 

but the singing of it;

a revolutionary chorus,

stealing their own scene,

collecting their dues.

Read about Melvin Van Peebles here

 

Richard H. Kirk - d. September 21st 2021

Through murk of interference

comes a drum pattern, blunt

as a drop-forge, and your voice,

distorted, flanged, phased:

This is the voice of the Republic;

stand by for a new manifesto

- beats, bleeps, menace, freaks.

Read about Richard Kirk here

Jimmy Greaves - d. September 19th 2021

After your life of action replays,

a whistle blowing full time

over and over, you in a suit

instead of blood-red shirt, 

the ball still finds its way

to your feet; the saddest man

in the stadium, and the sharpest.

Read about Jimmy Greaves here

Clive Sinclair - d. September 16th 2021

A solemn procession winds

through our streets, a column 

of whirring white hearses,

each conveying components

of a man before his time,  

who made the world bigger

by making it smaller.

Read about Clive Sinclair here

Maria Mendiola - d. September 11th 2021

We'll meet at the eternal disco;

you'll be dressed in sleek strings

and a bright halo of boogie. Maybe

you'll do your dance; a floorshow

for the ages, where everything's

too exotic, and just a little shady.

Read about Maria Mendiola here

Jean-Paul Belmondo - d. September 6th 2021

Vive les essoufflés ;
ceux dans les rues 

ensanglantées 

ou entre les draps,
leurs sourires disant non, 

rien n'a d'importance,
pourtant agir comme 

si chaque petite chose 

était importante.

Long live the breathless;

those on bloody streets

or between bedsheets, 

their smiles saying no, 

nothing matters, 

yet acting like every last 

little thing matters.

Grange Calveley - d. August 22nd 2021

Here is a dog. Here is a cat

Here is a life undrawn.

Wobbly lines. Wobbly mind.

Wobbly days, all gone.

Read about Grange Calveley here

Lee 'Scratch' Perry - d. August 29th 2021

You built a boat of sound for us,

a black ark of your imagination,

charting underwater frequencies, 

madness lurking in every channel,  

upsetting the world with iration.

Read about Lee 'Scratch' Perry here

Charlie Watts - d. August 24th 2021

Listen to the engine playing;

fills with no frills, on tempo, 

less-is-all, never straying,

suited and sharp as a hypo,

directing madness from a stool.

Only the hottest can be this cool.

Read about Charlie Watts here