Deaths
- January 4 – Phil Lynott, bassist/singer and co-founder of Thin Lizzy, 36 (heart failure & pneumonia)
- January 6 – Joe Farrell, jazz saxophonist, 48 (bone cancer)
- January 8 – Pierre Fournier, cellist, 79
- February 2 – Francisco Mignone, composer, 88
- February 14 – Edmund Rubbra, composer, 84
- February 15 – Galliano Masini, operatic tenor, 90
- March 4
- Richard Manuel (The Band), 42 (suicide)
- Howard Greenfield, songwriter, 49 (AIDS)
- March 11 – Sonny Terry, blues musician, 74
- March 21 – Raymond Burke, jazz clarinetist, 81
- March 22 – Mark Dinning, US singer, 52 (heart attack)
- March 30 – James Cagney, US actor, singer and dancer, 86
- March 31 – O'Kelly Isley of the Isley Brothers, 48 (heart attack)
- April 1 – Donald Grobe, operatic tenor, 56
- April 3 – Peter Pears, opera singer and partner of Benjamin Britten, 75
- April 8 – Yukiko Okada, singer, 18 (suicide)
- April 13 – Dorothy Ashby, jazz harpist and composer, 53 (cancer)
- April 19
- Dag Wirén, composer, 80
- Estelle Yancey, blues singer, 90
- June 3 – Anna Neagle, actress, singer and dancer, 81
- June 13 – Benny Goodman, bandleader, 77
- June 14 – Alan Jay Lerner, lyricist, 67
- June 16 – Maurice Duruflé, composer, 84
- June 17 – Kate Smith, singer, 79
- June 29 - Dusolina Giannini, operatic soprano, 83
- July 3 – Rudy Vallee, singer, 84
- July 18 – Don Wilkerson, saxophonist
- July 31 – Teddy Wilson, jazz pianist, 73
- September 27 – Cliff Burton (Metallica), 24 (tour bus accident)
- September 28 – Robert Helpmann, dancer and choreographer, 77
- October 16 – Arthur Grumiaux, violinist, 65
- November 1 – Sippie Wallace, blues singer, 88
- November 3 – Eddie Davis, saxophonist, 64
- November 6 - Elisabeth Grümmer, operatic soprano, 75
- November 7 – Tracy Pew, bass guitarist, 28 (brain hemorrhage)
- November 13 – Rudolf Schock, operatic tenor, 71
- November 18 – Lajos Bárdos, composer and conductor, 87
- November 22 – Scatman Crothers, singer, dancer and musician, 76
- December 1 – Horace Heidt, pianist and bandleader, 85
- December 10 – Kate Wolf, folk singer and songwriter, 44 (leukemia)
- date unknown – Boris Gutnikov, violinist
Read more about this topic: 1986 In Music
Famous quotes containing the word deaths:
“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)
“I sang of death but had I known
The many deaths one must have died
Before he came to meet his own!”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“On almost the incendiary eve
Of deaths and entrances ...”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)