John Barry, the Academy Award-winning film composer whose idiosyncratic and iconic compositions over the course of a lifetime in the movies -- including some of the best known James Bond music and the themes to "Midnight Cowboy," and "Out of Africa," among dozens of others -- died in New York on Sunday at age 77. The British-born composer not only helped define the feel of the Bond films but crafted music that served as a 1960s soundtrack to a new kind of jet-setting lifestyle. With his wildly adventurous arrangements and instrumentation, his music's devil-may-care feel will forever be connected to fashionably mod cocktail lounges of the era.

You'll be reading more on Barry in the Times' obituary, but here's a primer on some of his best known work.

With its seductive strings and grand melodies, "You Only Live Twice" captures the sound of sexy adventure, both smooth and pleasantly casual but somehow filled with tension. The pluck of an acoustic guitar sits alongside the flutter of a harp; an underlying rhythm sounds like Phil Spector's wall of sound as filtered through a cocktail shaker.

The note Lucinda Williams sent when I asked Wednesday for her reflections about Louvin Brothers singer Charlie Louvin, on getting word of his death at age 83 from pancreatic cancer, was exceptionally touching, and warm and funny.

I quoted just part of it in the obituary I wrote for Thursday's paper, but the whole thing is worth sharing:

"I got word of Charlie Louvin's passing today, which is also my birthday. Losing Charlie means that we have lost one of the last of the founding fathers of honest-to-god country music. Charlie was a legend as one half of the Louvin Brothers and left a deep impression on me. I had the honor of working with him in the studio and touring with him.

"Every show would end with the two of us trading out verses on his song, 'When I Stop Dreaming' followed by my song 'Get Right With God,'" Williams wrote in her e-mail, "Charlie loved that song and he loved to dance and as the band rocked out, he would grab my arms and spin me around.

"One time we were performing in Kansas City outdoors and it was very windy that evening. Charlie's set list kept blowing away. At one point, he'd finally had enough and he grabbed his pocket knife and planted that thing right through the set list into the stage floor to keep it from blowing away. Later, that same night, after the show, we sat on the bus and, with sadness in his eyes, he told us that, on the way to Kansas City, we had driven right by the milepost where his brother, Ira, had been killed in a car wreck.

"Charlie was eternally youthful, full of spitfire, vim and vigor and, like Hank Williams, was a true punk, in the best sense of the word. We will miss Charlie but like he said, shortly before he left us, 'I'm ready to go home.'"

Don Kirshner, rock impresario, music publishing powerhouse, television host and behind-the-scenes music supervisor (before there was such a job title) and song-picker for the Archies and the Monkees, died Monday in Boca Raton, Fla.,   at age 76. Over the course of half a century in the music business, he served as a bridge connecting songwriters with opportunity, and provided a televised stage in the 1970s and early '80s on which some of the rock era's most important bands performed. Here are a few highlights.

Kirshner worked with ace songwriters to pen songs for the Archies, and oversaw the music component of the cartoon band's sound. As the co-owner, with Al Nevins, of Aldon Songs, Kirshner worked with Brill Building geniuses Neil Sedaka, Carole King and Neil Diamond, among others.

Broadcast, the British band that specializes in lovely and textured electronic pop, has lost their singer, Trish Keenan, who died Friday due to complications from pneumonia at age 42. Warp Records, the band's label, announced that Keenan, a native of Birmingham, England, died in a hospital after battling the illness for two weeks. Other news outlets have reported that Keenan was suffering from a strain of the H1N1 flu.

When Broadcast debuted in the mid-'90s with a handful of singles (that Warp eventually gathered together for their 1997 release, "Work and Non Work"), the buzz was that they were something like a moodier Stereolab. Indeed, Keenan's voice was a sultry anchor for transcendent atmospheric burbles that were inspired by '60s psychedelic music, film scores and dissonant experimental music.

The art-pop group never had too much success in the mainstream -- despite "The Book Lovers" making an unlikely appearance on the "Austin Powers" soundtrack -- and Broadcast saw significant changes in personnel over the course of their four LPs, but they had a devoted following that kept the packed house rapt at their last appearance in Los Angeles, at the Troubadour in November 2009. At the end of Broadcast's set, Keenan performed a song with a fellow cultivator of the dark and mysterious, Vincent Gallo.

Warp's statement said that "this is an untimely tragic loss and we will miss Trish dearly -- a unique voice, an extraordinary talent and a beautiful human being. Rest in Peace."

Above is a video for "Winter Now," a track from Broadcast's 2003 album, "Ha Ha Sound." The band's most recent album was 2009's "Broadcast and the Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age."

-- Margaret Wappler

Gerry Rafferty, who achieved fame first for the 1972 song "Stuck in the Middle With You" and then for his saxophone-driven soft-rock classic "Baker Street" from 1978, died Tuesday morning. The singer, who suffered from liver disease, died at age 63, according to the Guardian.

Although his hit songs were all over the radio when they were first released, Rafferty and Stealers Wheel found a second life when director Quintin Tarantino used "Stuck in the Middle With You" in a grueling scene in "Reservoir Dogs." (We'd love to embed the scene, but in addition to the general cussing throughout, it also features actor Michael Madsen's character cutting off someone's ear.)

Despite the graphic scene, Rafferty will be remembered for his sweet, delicate voice, which made the Tarantino cue in the film even more jarring.

-- Randall Roberts

Among the bits of advice that Don Van Vliet, in the guise of his musical alter ego, Captain Beefheart, listed in a 1996 musical primer called “Captain Beefheart’s 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing,” is this, number 1: “Listen to the birds. That’s where all the music comes from. Birds know everything about how it should sound and where that sound should come from. And watch hummingbirds. They fly really fast, but a lot of times they aren’t going anywhere.”

Van Vliet, who died on Friday at 69, followed this advice throughout his career, making guitar-based music as part of Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band from the mid-1960s through the early ‘80s that was primal, transcendental, animalistic and absolutely out-of-time. Intensely bound with the natural world, the singer, composer, horn and woodwind player, bandleader -- and, after his retirement from the music business, painter – lived his life as a provocateur who ventured to the sonic and structural edges of rock to expand the music’s possibilities.

As a result, though, on first listen the best of Van Vliet and band, even 40 years later, sounds wrong – but only in the way that, say, Marcel Duchamp’s cubist painting “Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2” looks wrong. Many of Van Vliet’s peers both in the L.A. scene and as part of the British Invasion were transfixed with black blues and R&B music, and harnessed that love to invent their version of rock & roll, and then steadfastly stayed within the imposed blues-based template for the rest of their creative lives. But once Van Vliet mastered the style – on the fiery first two singles, Bo Diddley’s “Diddy Wah Diddy” and an original called “Frying Pan” -- he and the band started dismantling it, examining its parts, and reconstructing it to create blues/rock/free jazz as seen through shattered monocle.

This deconstruction occurred over a three-year period between 1966 and 1969 in various apartments and houses in Hollywood, Laurel Canyon and Woodland Hills. Guitarist Ry Cooder, who played guitar and helped translate Van Vliet’s vision on Captain Beefheart’s first full-length album in 1967, “Safe As Milk,” described Beefheart’s music in a BBC documentary like this: “Somehow the concept seemed to be, you take the raw blues elements, like the John Lee Hooker idea, Howlin’ Wolf, down to its purest element, which is just sound -- a grunt maybe -- and something abstract. And then you take your John Coltrane, your crazy time signature, free jazz, Ornette Coleman thing. Sort of hybridize them together, and this is what you come up with.”

The result was confusing, oblong and, at times, sonicly painful. Pulitzer Prize winning music critic Tim Page once wrote that at the pinnacle of Captain Beefheart’s notoriety, “there was no faster way to clear out a party than to put on one of his records and turn it up.” Page compared first encounters with the music as “befriending a porcupine.”

The indie-rap world was rocked over the weekend by the untimely death of 28-year old Michael "Eyedea" Larsen, who passed away in his sleep at his St. Paul, Minn., home.

A battle-rap legend who notched victories at the rap competitions Scribble (1999) and the  HBO-aired Blaze Battle (2000), Larsen recorded a trio of well-received albums with partner DJ Abilities, as well as a solo effort under the pseudonym Oliver Hart.

Known for his ferocious roller coaster flow and poetic gifts, the Rhymesayers-signed rapper emerged as one of the marquee artists of the underground boom of the late '90s and early 2000s. In recent years, he experimented with live jazz and rock fusion in the groups Face Candy and Carbon Carousel. But he returned to his hip-hop roots, recording last year's Abilities collaboration, "By the Throat," and performing on the Rock the Bells tour.

His mother, Kathy Averill, told the Associated Press that her son died Saturday.

The cause of his death remains unknown -- Averill announced Larsen's passing Sunday on his Facebook wall, writing that "It is with great pain and sadness that I tell you my son Mikey (Eyedea) has passed away ... At this time we kindly request your respect and our privacy as we process this devastating loss. We do, however, welcome your kind words, memories, and positive thoughts." 

The name Rodger Clayton might ring unfamiliar to the 35-and-under set, but his death from a heart attack Sunday marks the untimely loss of one of the pioneers of Los Angeles hip-hop. A founder of the legendary mobile disco crew Uncle Jamm's Army, Clayton was a West Coast cognate to such seminal New York figures as Grandmaster Flash and  Afrika Bambaataa.

Uncle Jamm's Army fused George Clinton, Prince, Kraftwerk and the early electro-rap booming out of the South Bronx,  and its popularity was practically peerless among the urban youth during its early to mid-1980s zenith. Founded in 1978, the crew hit its stride after changing its name in 1983 and graduated from throwing parties in small concert halls to the Los Angeles Sports Arena, the Los Angeles Convention Center and the Hollywood Palladium.

A 1983 Times article, archived on the thorough West Coast Pioneers site, catalogs Clayton & Co.'s  ascent and captures West Coast hip-hop at its most incipient stage. In addition to their massive disco-rap blowouts, Clayton and his crew recorded some of the era's most famed local hits, including "The Roach Is on the Wall," "What's Your Sign" and the classic Egyptian Lover collaboration, "Dial-A-Freak."

Linda Ronstadt spoke with me Thursday, generously sharing many memories of guitarist-singer-songwriter-producer Kenny Edwards, who died Wednesday at age 64. Edwards was a founder of the Stone Poneys, the band with whom Ronstadt first surfaced nationally when they scored a hit single with their version of Monkee Michael Nesmith’s song “Different Drum.” They met during an especially fertile time in the history of L.A. pop music, particularly in and around Santa Monica circa the early to mid-1960s. He became a key member of her band through her commercial peak in the 1970s and into the 1980s, until she made her shift to singing music of the pre-rock era. He also worked alongside musicians including Don Henley, Stevie Nicks, Ringo Starr, Karla Bonoff, Wendy Waldman and numerous others.

I met Kenny when I was about to turn 18 and he was 17. I had just come from Tucson, and I was immediately drawn to him because we both had very eclectic tastes. He was incredibly sophisticated. He knew how to play the sitar, he had seen Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan and knew about people like Inez Foxx and the Staple Singers, and he could play all of it.

I knew him as a blues guitar player; we had both gone to see a show by the band Ry Cooder was in, the Rising Sons. Kenny introduced me to a lot of stuff. He was always beautifully dressed, kind of like a cross between working class and a college professor — tweed jackets — it was a very interesting look…. He was also really smart. He always read good stuff. I remember he was reading Thomas Mann when he was 17.

When the Stone Poneys were going, we’d get together and he’d cook Indian food. He loved to cook — he’d cook for days. He would also go to Pink’s — he always knew where to get the best burger in town — or he’d go down for a night at the Apple Pan. He was the male version of [Leonard Cohen’s] “Suzanne”: "He shows you where to look among the garbage and the flowers."

We had a little house on Hart [Avenue in Santa Monica], and in one block, the Doors lived across the street, Pete Seeger’s dad lived in another house and the whole Seeger family thing was going there, [actor] Ron Perlman lived in another. There was a soul food restaurant in the neighborhood and you could walk to the Nuart [Theatre].  I got exposed to a cultural world I never knew about. It was a hippie crash pad, but it cost $60 a month, which was split about 15 ways. I could make $30 last for a month.

When the Stone Poneys started, Kenny had never sung, we [Tucson transplants Ronstadt and Bobby Kimmel] drafted him and kind of forced him to sing harmony. Later, when he started singing harmony with Andrew [Gold on her early ‘70s solo records], that became an important part of my sound. Having those strong male voices behind me gave me a chance to sing the high leads.

He had excellent creative ideas, and didn’t always get the credit that others did. When we recorded “You’re No Good,” Andrew gets the obvious credits, but Kenny supplied the skeleton, the basic framework of that low guitar and bass part that gave it a completely different sound. That gave Peter [Asher] and Andrew something to build on. 

Kenny’s voice was like a laser beam. He was really strong. He was always a good singer, but back then it was always kind of a festival-seating approach. He’d move around to place a note wherever it would fit. His later stuff became so refined. His singing got so accurate and precise. He didn’t really have an arc in his career, he just kept getting better and better.

He was always a beacon to me, and his opinion always counted a lot for me. The great thing about watching what he’d been doing in recent years is how much he enjoyed it. He dreamed good dreams and he lived them out.

-- Randy Lewis

Photo of Kenny Edwards. Credit: Gabriel Judet-Weinshel

Ben Keith, the veteran steel guitarist who played on Patsy Cline’s 1961 hit “I Fall to Pieces” before befriending Neil Young and going on to play on more than a dozen of the Canadian rocker's albums, has died. He was 73.

He died of a heart attack, director Jonathan Demme said Tuesday. Demme, who directed Young’s concert films “Neil Young Trunk Show” from earlier this year and 2006’s “Heart of Gold,” said Keith had been staying at Young’s ranch in Northern California, working on new projects with his longtime collaborator.

Keith was featured prominently in both. In “Neil Young Trunk Show,” shot in Pennsylvania at a stop on Young’s 2007-2008 concert tour, Young said a key reason he chose to tour with Keith, bassist Rick Rosas and Crazy Horse drummer Ralph Molina, rather than convening the full, hard-rocking Crazy Horse trio, was that “I can do more variety this way, because Ben plays so many instruments.”

Demme called Keith “an elegant, beautiful dude, and obviously a genius. He could play every instrument. He was literally the bandleader on any of that stuff… Neil has all the confidence in the world, but with Ben on board, there were no limits. Neil has a fair measure of the greatness of his music, but he knew he was even better when Ben was there.”

Most recently, Keith had been touring with Young’s wife, Pegi, in support of her second solo album, “Foul Deeds,” for a handful of West Coast performances in June. He also had played earlier this year with Neil Young on his first totally acoustic tour in several years.

Keith met Young in 1971 in Nashville, where the rocker was working on what would become his commercial breakthrough album, “Harvest.” Keith came to the recording studio at the invitation of bassist Tim Drummond, whom Young had asked to find a steel player for the sessions. When Keith arrived, “I didn’t know who anyone was, so I asked, ‘Who’s that guy over there?’ ” and was told “That’s Neil Young.”

One of the leading figures in the Chicago music scene was lost Thursday as Fred Anderson, saxophonist, club owner and tireless advocate for the city's fertile jazz scene, died at 81. In a tender, illuminating obituary for the Chicago Tribune, critic Howard Reich reported that Anderson's sons declined to get into specifics about the saxophonist's death, but grave news of his "massive heart attack" on June 14 sent ripples of concern through the jazz community.

Owner of Chicago's landmark Velvet Lounge and co-founder of Chicago's intensely creative Assn. for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) collective, Anderson helped nurture the careers of many Chicago jazz heavyweights, including Ken Vandermark, Hamid Drake and Jeff Parker. Anderson remained a force onstage and on record late in life, including a remarkable 2007 album with Drake and Parker, "From the River to the Ocean" (recorded by Tortoise's John McEntire and released on the Chicago indie label Thrill Jockey), and last year's live recording from his 80th-birthday show at the Velvet Lounge, "21st Century Chase," a fiery, inspiring free excursion that also featured Parker along with tenor saxophonist Kidd Jordan, bassist Harrison Bankhead and drummer Chad Taylor.

As reported in a separate story by Reich, the future of the Velvet Lounge has an unfortunate question mark looming over it with the loss of Anderson, who often covered some of its operations out of his own pocket. Fortunately, what will endure is the music, and Anderson left us with plenty to appreciate. Sample the video above, the trailer from a 2006 live CD/DVD set, "Timeless," for a taste.

-- Chris Barton

Influential heavy metal singer Ronnie James Dio, best known for his iconic wailing for Black Sabbath and, before that, Rainbow, has died of stomach cancer. His death was announced via a statement on his website from wife Wendy Dio, which read:

Today my heart is broken, Ronnie passed away at 7:45am 16th May. Many, many friends and family were able to say their private good-byes before he peacefully passed away. Ronnie knew how much he was loved by all. We so appreciate the love and support that you have all given us. Please give us a few days of privacy to deal with this terrible loss. Please know he loved you all and his music will live on forever. -- Wendy Dio

[Updated at 2:45 p.m.: Dio's stomach cancer diagnosis became public in late 2009. Earlier this year, the artist announced that a planned European tour with his band Heaven & Hell would have to be canceled due to his declining health. Dio, however, was able to appear in Los Angeles at an early April  metal event sponsored by hard rock magazine Revolver, where he spoke of the challenges of dealing with chemotherapy. 

"I never realized what a difficult thing it was to go through," he said in a video interview with Artisan News. "It's a real cumulative effect -- the more you have, the more it piles up on top and it takes longer and longer to get over it. I find it very difficult to eat. I don't like to eat, anyway, so I guess that's OK. But I know I have to. But this makes it very, very hard. But if you're determined to beat it, then you have to go with what you believe is going to beat it for you."

Dio was born July 10, 1949, according to the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, yet there has long been dispute about his age. Fans have long put Dio's true birth date as the summer of 1942, and numerous reports of Dio's death have cited his age as 67.

Dio replaced Ozzy Osbourne as the lead singer of Black Sabbath, who left the band in 1979 after increasingly reckless behavior. Dio's first album with the group, "Heaven & Hell," has been certified platinum by industry trade body the RIAA, putting its total shipments at more than 1 million copies.  Soon after the release of 1981's "Mob Rules," Dio left Black Sabbath to start his own group, Dio.

Dio continued to record with his namesake group into this decade, and more recently had formed Heaven & Hell. The latter was essentially a reunion of the Obsourne-less Black Sabbath, and released the studio effort "The Devil You Know" in 2009. The Rhino album entered the U.S. pop chart at No. 8 after selling 30,000 copies in its first week, according to Nielsen SoundScan.]

The Times will continue to update this post with a more expansive look at one of the godfathers of heavy metal, but, for now, check out the above clip, eight minutes of Dio 101, which illustrates the breadth of Dio's powers. Every metal vocalist who's ever reached for an operatic note owes a debt to the master.

-- Randall Roberts and Todd Martens