Deaths
- January 5 – Roberto Gerhard, composer, 73
- January 9 – Jani Christou, composer, 44 (car accident)
- January 17
- Simon Kovar, bassoonist
- Billy Stewart, scat singer, 32 (car accident)
- January 25 – Jane Bathori, opera singer, 92
- January 31 – Slim Harpo, blues musician, 46 (heart attack)
- February 1 – Blaž Arnič, composer, 69 (car crash)
- February 12
- Ishman Bracey, blues musician, 69
- Nick Pantas, guitarist (Elf) (car accident)
- André Souris, composer and writer, 70
- February 19 - Pavel Ludikar, operatic bass, 87
- February 20 – Albert Wolff, conductor, 86
- March 1 – Lucille Hegamin, blues singer, 75
- March 16 – Tammi Terrell, singer, 24 (brain tumor)
- April 12 - Kerstin Thorborg, operatic contralto, 73
- April 20 – Shakeel Badayuni, songwriter, 53 (diabetes-related)
- April 21
- Earl Hooker, blues musician, 41 (tuberculosis)
- Joe Young, lyricist
- April 23 – Adeline Genée, ballerina
- April 24 – Otis Spann, blues musician, 40 (liver cancer)
- April 26 – Gypsy Rose Lee, burlesque entertainer, 59 (cancer)
- May 11 – Johnny Hodges, jazz musician
- May 14 – Jack Fina, pianist and bandleader, 56 (heart attack)
- May 22 - John Waterhouse, Canadian violinist, conductor, and music educator, 92
- May 23 – Nydia Westman, actress and singer
- June – Calvin Boze, trumpeter and bandleader
- June 6 – Lonnie Johnson, blues and jazz musician
- June 11 – Earl Grant, pianist and singer, 39 (car accident)
- June 16 – Heino Eller, composer and music teacher
- July 7 – Charles Tobias, US songwriter and singer
- July 12 – L. Wolfe Gilbert, Russian-born US songwriter
- July 13 – Roger Edens, composer and arranger, 64
- July 14 – Luis Mariano, singer and actor
- July 17 – Stanley Wilson, conductor, arranger and film composer, 54 (heart attack)
- July 23 – Leith Stevens, composer, 60 (heart attack)
- July 29 – Sir John Barbirolli, conductor, 70
- July 30 – George Szell, conductor and composer
- July 31 – Booker Ervin, jazz musician, 39 (kidney failure)
- September 2
- Mercedes Llopart, operatic soprano, 75
- Kees van Baaren, composer and music teacher, 63
- September 3 – Alan Wilson, singer of Canned Heat, 27 (drug overdose)
- September 18
- Jimi Hendrix, guitarist and singer, 27 (asphyxiated)
- Maxwell Davis, saxophonist, 54
- September 25 - Yefim Golyshev, Ukrainian violinist, painter and composer, 73
- October 2 – Bo Linde, Swedish composer, 37
- October 4
- Janis Joplin, singer, 27 (heroin overdose)
- George Frederick McKay, composer, 71
- October 13 – Julia Culp, operatic soprano ("the Dutch nightingale"), 90
- October 22
- Pauline Donalda, operatic soprano, 88
- Samson François, pianist, 46
- October 28 – Baby Huey, singer, 26 (heart attack)
- October 31 – Arvid Andersen, violinist, conductor and composer
- November 6 – Agustín Lara, composer, 73
- November 7 – Eddie Peabody, banjo player, 68
- November 19 – Maria Yudina, pianist, 71
- November 25 – Albert Ayler, saxophonist and composer, 34
- December 19 - Giulia Recli, composer and writer, 80
- December 23 – Mimi Benzell, operatic soprano, 46 (cancer)
- December 31
- Ray Henderson, songwriter, 74
- Cyril Scott, composer, 91
- date unknown
- Efisio Melis, folk musician
- Rokneddin Mokhtari, Iranian violinist
Read more about this topic: 1970 In Music
Famous quotes containing the word deaths:
“As deaths have accumulated I have begun to think of life and death as a set of balance scales. When one is young, the scale is heavily tipped toward the living. With the first death, the first consciousness of death, the counter scale begins to fall. Death by death, the scales shift weight until what was unthinkable becomes merely a matter of gravity and the fall into death becomes an easy step.”
—Alison Hawthorne Deming (b. 1946)
“On almost the incendiary eve
Of deaths and entrances ...”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“There is the guilt all soldiers feel for having broken the taboo against killing, a guilt as old as war itself. Add to this the soldier’s sense of shame for having fought in actions that resulted, indirectly or directly, in the deaths of civilians. Then pile on top of that an attitude of social opprobrium, an attitude that made the fighting man feel personally morally responsible for the war, and you get your proverbial walking time bomb.”
—Philip Caputo (b. 1941)