I'm telling you now, I know it's been said before

As my friend RJ Eskow mentioned, we lost Desmond Dekker and Hamza El Din this past week. But we lost 2 other music related people recently.


Freddie Garrity:

Freddie Garrity, the lead singer of the 1960s pop band Freddie and the Dreamers, has died in hospital. The 69-year-old, originally from Manchester, had been receiving treatment for what were described as "circulation problems".

He died on Friday at Ysbyty Gwynedd in Bangor, north Wales.

The five-piece band had success in both Britain and the US with hits such as I'm Telling You Now and You Were Made For Me.

Sadly, they weren't taken as seriously as some of the other British Invasion bands, and often don't get mentioned in the same company as The Hollies, The Searchers, The Dave Clark Five, and of course, the Beatles & The Stones. Wikipedia has this:

In the end success for the group was limited. Despite Freddie's innocent novelty appeal, the Dreamers had a "wrong-side-of-the-law" look, a similar mix to that of their Merseybeat rivals Gerry & the Pacemakers, which made both groups looked older, "square" and past their sell-by date. This "mums and dads" appeal was a big contrast to image of The Beatles and the young and trendy beat combos starting to emerge, such as The Dave Clark Five, The Who, The Small Faces or The Kinks. Television shows such as Ready Steady Go! subtly stressed the point. Freddie and the Dreamers were also happy to appear on the popular BBC children's show Blue Peter.

Also passing this past week was Ian Copeland (from Pollstar):

Ian Copeland, founder of Frontier Booking International and brother of former IRS Records CEO Miles Copeland and ex-Police drummer Stewart Copeland, died May 23rd in Los Angeles after a long battle with melanoma. He turned 57 on April 25th.

Ian got his start in the agency business at Paragon Agency in Macon, Ga., in the 1970s, working with Alex Hodges. Buck Williams and John Huie, before starting FBI - where he represented some of the top artists of the 1980s including the Police, R.E.M., Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, Go-Go's, and Squeeze.

Copeland wrote an autobiography, "Wild Thing," in 1995 recounting his remarkable career and upbringing as the son of an American C.I.A. agent in the Middle East.

In recent years he owned the Backstage Café in Beverly Hills.

He is survived by two daughters, Chandra and Barbara.

While not household names lately, both men made a difference in the music world. That should provide some comfort to their families.