Deaths
- January 4 – Paul Chambers, jazz bassist (b. 1935) (tuberculosis)
- January 17 - Grażyna Bacewicz, Polish composer and violinist (b. 1909)
- February 15 – Pee Wee Russell, jazz clarinetist (b. 1906)
- February 20 – Ernest Ansermet, conductor (b. 1883)
- February 23 – Constantin Silvestri, conductor and composer (b. 1913)
- March 25 – Billy Cotton, bandleader (b. 1899)
- March 26 - Clara Dow, operatic soprano (b. 1883)
- April 2 – Fortunio Bonanova, baritone (b. 1895)
- April 4 - Fanny Anitùa, operatic contralto (b. 1887)
- April 10 – Fernando Ortiz, ethnomusicologist (b. 1881)
- April 20 – Benny Benjamin ("Papa Zita"), drummer (b. 1925) (stroke)
- April 22 - Amparo Iturbi, Spanish pianist (b. 1898)
- April 23 – Krzysztof Komeda, jazz musician and composer (b. 1931) (haematoma)
- April 29 – Julius Katchen, pianist (b. 1926) (cancer)
- May 1 – Ella Logan, actress and singer (b. 1913)
- May 17 - Maria Olszewska, operatic contralto (b. 1892)
- May 22 – Nicola Salerno, Italian lyricist (b. 1910)
- May 9 - Elias Breeskin, violinist, conductor and composer (b. 1896)
- May 23 – Jimmy McHugh, US composer and pianist (b. 1894)
- June 14
- Roberto Firpo, Argentine tango pianist (b. 1884)
- Wynonie Harris, R & B singer ("Mister Blues") (b. 1915)
- June 17 – Rita Abatzi, rebetiko musician (b. 1914)
- June 22 – Judy Garland, singer and actress (b. 1922) (overdose of barbiturates)
- July 3 – Brian Jones, guitarist, founder member of The Rolling Stones (b. 1942) (drowned)
- July 5 – Wilhelm Backhaus, pianist (b. 1884)
- July 11 - Hina Spani, operatic soprano (b. 1896)
- July 26 – Frank Loesser, US songwriter (b. 1910)
- August 6 – Theodor Adorno, exponent of the "New Music" (b. 1903)
- August 11 - Miriam Licette, operatic soprano (b. 1885)
- August 13 – Jacob do Bandolim, mandolin player and composer (b. 1918)
- September 5 – Josh White, blues musician (b. 1914)
- September 14 - Alice Zeppilli, operatic soprano (b. 1885)
- October 3 – Skip James, blues musician (b. 1902)
- October 4 – Natalino Otto, Italian singer (b. 1912)
- October 22 – Tommy Edwards, singer (b. 1922)
- November 8 – Ricardo Aguirre, protest singer (b. 1939)
- November 18 – Ted Heath, bandleader (b. 1902)
- November 23 – Spade Cooley, swing musician and murderer (b. 1910) (heart attack)
- December 1 – Magic Sam, blues musician (b. 1937) (heart attack)
- December 5 - James "Stump" Johnson, blues pianist (b. 1902)
- December 6 – Walther Aeschbacher, Swiss conductor and composer (b. 1901)
- December 22 – Wilbur Hatch, pianist, composer and conductor (b. 1902)
- date unknown - Marcel LaFosse, trumpeter (b. 1895)
- probable – Mississippi Joe Callicott, blues musician (b. 1900)
Read more about this topic: 1969 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)
“You lived too long, we have supped full with heroes,
they waste their deaths on us.”
—C.D. Andrews (1913–1992)
“Death is too much for men to bear, whereas women, who are practiced in bearing the deaths of men before their own and who are also practiced in bearing life, take death almost in stride. They go to meet death—that is, they attempt suicide—twice as often as men, though men are more “successful” because they use surer weapons, like guns.”
—Roger Rosenblatt (b. 1940)