Canadian rock musician, writer, and occasional actor Gord Downie, who was the lead singer and lyricist for the Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip, passed away last night after a more than year-long battle with brain cancer. Canada mourns the loss of one of its most celebrated musicians, and the industry is undoubtedly poorer without him here. But before he passed Downie had the rare privilege to make peace with the inevitable and to wish the nation, and his millions of fans, goodbye. He undertook a sprawling farewell tour across Canada in the summer of 2016 that will be remembered as among the most important to grace the nation — an extraordinary gift bequeathed by a dying man to those who adored him.

Downie was born in the small town of Amherstview, Ontario, in the early months of 1964. He attended high school in nearby Kingston, where he was the lead singer of a punk-rock group called The Slinks. Downie’s classmates, Gord Sinclair and Rob Baker, had a band of their own at the time, called The Rodents, and the three admired one another’s taste and sound. At a certain point they decided to abandon the nearly obsolete punk scene and form a rock band together. They called it The Tragically Hip.The Hip honed their style in small clubs around the city. By the time they graduated Kingston Collegiate and enrolled in University — Downey elected to study film at Queens — their live show, consisting mainly of covers of bar-band staples, had become popular enough locally that they were performing nearly every weekend.

With the Hip, he released 14 studio albums, two live albums, one EP, and 54 singles. Nine of their albums have reached No. 1 on the Canadian charts. They have received numerous Canadian music awards, including 16 Juno Awards. He released five solo albums: Coke Machine Glow (2001), Battle of the Nudes (2003), The Grand Bounce (2010), And the Conquering Sun with The Sadies (2014) and Secret Path (2016).

The Tragically Hip announced on their website on 24 May 2016 that Downie had been diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour. Doctors at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre confirmed the same day that it was a glioblastoma, which had responded favourably to radiation and chemotherapy treatment but was not curable. Downie toured with the band in summer 2016 to support Man Machine Poem, the band’s 14th studio album. The tour’s final concert was held at the Rogers K-Rock Centre in Kingston, Ontario on 20 August 2016 and was broadcast and streamed live by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on television, radio and internet. It was viewed by an estimated 11.7 million people. His wife, herself a cancer survivour who separated from him a while ago, and he have 4 kids.

Veteran U.S. rocker Tom Petty, whose vibrant guitar riffs, distinctly raw, nasal vocals and slick song lyrics graced such hits as “Refugee,” “Free Fallin’” and “American Girl,” has died following a heart attack. He was 66. Petty suffered cardiac arrest and was found unconscious at his home in Malibu early on Monday morning and was taken to UCLA Medical Center but could not be revived, his long-time manager Tony Dimitriades said in a statement. He died peacefully at 8:40 p.m. local time (0340 GMT Tuesday) surrounded by family, his bandmates and friends. Bob Dylan called his death “shocking, crushing news” in a statement to Rolling Stone magazine.

Petty, best known for his roots-infused rock music, carved a career as a solo artist as well as with his band The Heartbreakers and as part of supergroup The Traveling Wilburys. Petty and The Heartbreakers embarked on a 40th anniversary tour of the United States this year and last played three dates in late September at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. The band was scheduled to perform two dates in New York in November. Petty formed The Heartbreakers in the mid 1970s, but it wasn’t until the band’s third album “Damn the Torpedoes” in 1979 that their music really took off, with hits such as “Refugee” and “Don’t Do Me Like That.” He and the band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, when they were described by organizers as “the quintessential American individualists”, capturing the voice of the American everyman.

“Music, as far as I have seen in the world so far, is the only real magic that I know,” Petty once said during an interview with CNN. “There is something really honest and clean and pure and it touches you in your heart.” Petty also co-founded the 1980s supergroup The Traveling Wilburys with Dylan, Roy Orbison, George Harrison and Jeff Lynne, penning hits such as “End of the Line” and “She’s My Baby.” Petty dropped out of high school when he was 17 and joined Mudcrutch, a band with which he moved to Los Angeles in 1970. The band broke up and Petty drifted from band to band before joining back up with his bandmates from Mudcrutch in 1975. The group became Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in 1976, according to Allmusic.com.

The band, which recorded 16 albums, culled “the best parts of the British Invasion, American garage rock, and Dylanesque singer/songwriters to create a distinctively American hybrid that recalled the past without being indebted to it,” the site said. A 2015 biography of the singer, “Petty: The Biography,” revealed for the first time the rocker’s heroin addiction in the 1990s. Petty married Jane Benyo in 1974, and the two divorced in 1996. Benyo disclosed to Stevie Nicks that she met Petty at “the age of seventeen.” Nicks misheard Benyo, leading to Nicks’ song “Edge of Seventeen”. Petty and Benyo had two daughters; Adria is a director and AnnaKim is an artist.^[64] Petty married Dana York Epperson on June 3, 2001, and he had a stepson, Dylan, from York’s earlier marriage.

Who in Your Life Introduces You to New Music?

These years I dread listening to new music. Well, I guess dread is not he right word. It’s just that it seems like I have so little time for listening to music these days that I can barely find time for new stuff. So when I find a new song that I really like or even a song that is from years ago but I am listening to for the first, I dread the fact that I can’t just stop at that one song from the band/duo/artist because if I liked that song so much then there must be so many songs from the same artist that I will like a lot.

That is a dilemma. I don’t have time and/or energy to discover new bands anymore. I am 41 now and I haven’t been into listening to new music for the past 4-5 years. I like what I have and I can barely listen to all of my current mp3 collection – infact my rather neglected collection as I usually just play music on Youtube with music videos or live versions of these songs. You also find just the audio of the songs or even whole albums worth of just audio on Youtube which makes it easy for you to listen to stuff while you do other things online – like Facebook or blog.

No one really introduces me to new music these days. I am part of 2-3 music related groups on Facebook that share music videos and stuff online and from time to time I have been surprised by how much I like a new song or band and that is great. But music has become much of a downer for me as more and more crappy pop and rap artists rule the roost and people just don’t want to learn to play instruments anymore.

Prompt from The Learning Network at The New York Times

Gregg Allman, the singer, musician and songwriter who played an essential role in the invention of Southern rock, has died at the age of 69. Allman’s rep confirmed to Rolling Stone that the artist died Saturday afternoon. Allman “passed away peacefully at his home in Savannah, Georgia,” a statement on the singer’s website read Saturday. “Gregg struggled with many health issues over the past several years. During that time, Gregg considered being on the road playing music with his brothers and solo band for his beloved fans, essential medicine for his soul. Playing music lifted him up and kept him going during the toughest of times.” He is best known for performing in the Allman Brothers Band. He was born and spent much of his childhood in Nashville, Tennessee, before relocating to Daytona Beach, Florida. He and his brother, Duane Allman, developed an interest in music in their teens, and began performing in the Allman Joys in the mid-1960s. In 1967, they relocated to Los Angeles and were renamed the Hour Glass, releasing two albums for Liberty Records. In 1969, he and Duane regrouped to form the Allman Brothers Band, which settled in Macon, Georgia.

The Allman Brothers Band began to reach mainstream success by the early 1970s, with their live album At Fillmore East representing a commercial and artistic breakthrough. Shortly thereafter, Duane was killed in a motorcycle crash in 1971. The following year, the band’s bassist, Berry Oakley was also killed in a motorcycle accident very close to the location of Duane’s wreck. Their 1973 album Brothers and Sisters became their biggest hit, and Allman pursued a solo career afterward, releasing his debut album, Laid Back the same year. Internal turmoil took over the group, leading to a 1975 breakup. Allman was married to pop star Cher for the rest of the decade, while he continued his solo career with the Gregg Allman Band. After a brief Allman Brothers reunion and a decade of little activity, he reached an unexpected peak with the hit single “I’m No Angel” in 1987. After two more solo albums, the Allman Brothers reformed for a third and final time in 1989, and continued performing until 2014. He released his most recent solo album, Low Country Blues, in 2011, and his next, Southern Blood, is set to be released in 2017.

For his work in music, Allman was referred to as a Southern rock pioneer[1] and received numerous awards, including several Grammys; he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. His distinctive voice placed him in 70th place in the installment loans poor credit Rolling Stone list of the “100 Greatest Singers of All Time”.[2] Allman released an autobiography, My Cross to Bear, in 2012. In 2016, Allman was forced to cancel his summer tour due to unspecified “serious health problems.” After briefly returning to the stage – Allman’s last concert was at his 2016 Laid Back Festival in Atlanta – and scheduling a winter tour, Allman again canceled the dates, citing a vocal injury. Allman’s partners included Shelley Kay Winters, Janice Blair, Cher, Julie Bindas, Ganielle J. P. Galiana, and Stacey Fountain and had 5 children.

Chris Cornell (born low interest unsecured loan Christopher John Boyle; July 20, 1964 – May 18, 2017) was an American musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist, primary songwriter and rhythm guitarist for Seattle rock band Soundgarden and as lead vocalist and songwriter for the group Audioslave. He was also known for his numerous solo works and soundtrack contributions since 1991, and as founder and frontman for Temple of the Dog, the one-off tribute band dedicated to his late friend Andrew Wood.

Cornell was known for his role as one of the architects of the 1990s grunge movement, for his extensive catalog as a songwriter and for his near four octave vocal range as well as his powerful vocal belting technique. He released four solo studio albums, Euphoria Morning (1999), Carry On (2007), Scream (2009), Higher Truth (2015) and the live album Songbook (2011). Cornell received a Golden Globe Award nomination for his song “The Keeper” which appeared in the film Machine Gun Preacher and co-wrote and performed the theme song to the James Bond film Casino Royale (2006), “You Know My Name“. He was voted “Rock’s Greatest Singer” by readers of Guitar World, ranked 4th in the list of “Heavy Metal’s All-Time Top 100 Vocalists” by Hit Parader, 9th in the list of “Best Lead Singers of All Time” by Rolling Stone, and 12th in MTV’s “22 Greatest Voices in Music”.

Cornell was born and raised in Seattle, Washington, and attended Christ the King Catholic elementary school,^[9] and Shorewood High School. Before becoming a successful musician, he worked at a seafood wholesaler and was a sous-chef at a restaurant named Ray’s Boathouse. Soundgarden was formed in 1984 by Cornell, Thayil and Yamamoto with Cornell originally on drums and vocals. Soundgarden signed to Sub Pop, releasing the Screaming Life EP in 1987 and the Fopp EP in 1988 (a combination of the two was issued as Screaming Life/Fopp in 1990). Though the band was being courted by major labels, in 1988 they signed to SST Records to release their debut album, Ultramega OK (198, for which they earned a Grammy Award nomination for Best Metal Performance in 1990. The band subsequently signed with A&M Records, becoming the first grunge band to sign to a major label. In 1989, the band released their second effort, and their first for a major label, Louder Than Love. Following the release of Louder Than Love, Yamamoto left the band to finish his master’s degree in physical chemistry at Western Washington University. He was replaced by former Nirvana guitarist Jason Everman. Everman was fired following Soundgarden’s tour supporting Louder Than Love. In 1990, the band was joined by a new bassist, Ben Shepherd.

Along with Alice in Chains, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam, Soundgarden became one of the most successful bands from Seattle’s emerging grunge scene in the early 1990s. With Shepherd, the new line-up recorded Badmotorfinger in 1991. Superunknown became the band’s breakthrough album. Upon its release in March 1994, Superunknown debuted at number one on the Billboard 200.^[18] The album launched several successful singles, including “Spoonman” and “Black Hole Sun”, and granted Soundgarden international recognition. The band’s fifth album was 1996’s self-produced Down on the Upside. The album spawned several singles, including “Pretty Noose”, “Burden in My Hand”, and “Blow Up the Outside World”. The album was notably less heavy than the group’s preceding albums, and marked a further departure from the band’s grunge roots. However, tensions within the group arose during the sessions, with Thayil and Cornell reportedly clashing over Cornell’s desire to shift away from the heavy guitar riffing that had become the band’s trademark.

Due to tensions within the band, reportedly due to internal strife over its creative direction, Soundgarden announced it was disbanding on April 9, 1997. In 1998, Cornell began working on material for a solo album on which he collaborated with Alain Johannes and Natasha Shneider of the band Eleven. The album, titled Euphoria Morning, was released on September 21, 1999. On June 5, 2007, Cornell released his second solo album, Carry On, produced by Steve Lillywhite. It debuted at number 17 on the American Billboard charts. Audioslave was formed after Zack de la Rocha left Rage Against the Machine and the remaining members were searching for another vocalist. Their debut album, Audioslave, released in November 2002, spawned hits such as “Cochise”, “Like a Stone” and “Show Me How to Live”, and has reached triple platinum status in the United States. Audioslave’s second album, Out of Exile, was released in May 2005 and debuted at number one on the U.S. charts. The album has since gone on to achieve platinum status. In early 2006 the band returned, recording their third album as they had written most of the material during the tour. The band released the album, titled Revelations, in September 2006.

On February 15, 2007, Cornell officially announced his departure from Audioslave, stating that “Due to irresolvable personality conflicts as well as musical differences. He reformed Soundgarden with Thayyil, Sheppard & Cameron (who is also the drummer for Pearl Jam). Their sixth album, King Animal, was released in November 2012 to largely positive reviews. Cornell was married to Susan Silver, the manager of Alice in Chains and Soundgarden. They had a daughter, Lillian Jean, born in June 2000. He and Silver divorced in 2004. He was married to Vicky Karayiannis,^[113] a Paris-based American publicist of Greek heritage. The union produced a daughter, Toni, born in September 2004, and a son, Christopher Nicholas, born in December 2005. He has fought a long battle with alcohol abuse and has been sober for a while. On May 18, 2017, Cornell died suddenly in Detroit after performing at a show with Soundgarden according to his representative, Brian Bumbery. The cause of death is currently unknown.

Update : his death was ruled as suicide by hanging.