The Canadian actor Donald Sutherland, has died at 88 after a long illness. His son, the actor Kiefer Sutherland, said: "With a heavy heart, I tell you that my father, Donald Sutherland, has passed away. I personally think one of the most important actors in the history of film.
Sutherland had almost 200 credits to his name, in a more than half a century career, "Never daunted by a role, good, bad or ugly". He just loved what he did and did what he loved. Sutherland was born in New Brunswick in 1935. After graduating with degrees in engineering and drama from the Unversity of Toronto, he moved to London to start his acting career.
He had small roles in Italian and British films, before making his feature film debut in the 1964 movie "Castle of the Living Dead." His breakthrough role as Vernon Pinkley in the 1967 film "The Dirty Dozen" catapulted Sutherland to his first starring role in the hit film "M*A*S*H.!, He was a man with a strong presence, a brilliance in his craft and truly, truly a great Canadian artist.
The 1970s also saw him play an IRA member in The Eagle Has Landed, a pot-smoking college professor in National Lampoon's Animal House and the lead in the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and the iconical "Kelly's Heroes" alongside Telly Zabalas and Clint Eastwood playing the role of the weirdo Sargeant Oddball.In the 1980s, Sutherland played the father of a suicidal teenager in the Oscar-winning "Ordinary Peopl"e.
He turned to television in the 2000s, appearing in such series as Dirty Sexy Money and Commander-in-Chief., despite his numerous roles, he was never nominated for an Oscar. He did receive an honorary Academy Award in 2017. Sutherland was known for his political activism throughout his career, and protested against the Vietnam war alongside Fonda.
Over the last years. he
also channelled his beliefs into some of his roles, including The
Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, where he played the tyrannical
President Snow. His Memoir, "Made Up, But Still True", is due to be published in November.
Released on 19 June 1989, "Protest Songs" was the fourth studio album by Englisn sophistipop band Prefab Sprout, the album features minimal production style and released no singles, due this was to be released on Decemebre 1985 as a follow-up to the bands critically acclaimed second album "Steve McQueen"/"Two Wheels Good", but it was put on hold for commercial reasons and the band then moved on to their 1988's "From Langley Park To Memphis", the album reached No. 18 on the UK Albums chart.
After the critical and commercial success of "Steve McQueen" Paddy McAloon felt under pressure to deliver a worthy follow-up, so he solved to record a new one using limited production in late 1985, so McAloon then described the album a down-to-earth record, his title "Protest Songs", recorded over 12 days in Newcastle upon Tyne under relaxed session, the original released date was December 2, 1985.
But there was a fear about this record could affect the sales and loss profit on "Steve McQueen" so the label decided to shelving the record, leaving then fans without a proper follow up for nearly three years until March 14th, 1988 when "From Langley Park To Memphis" came out, the record then remained in the archives for about four years but a fistful of copies mamaging. to get into the hands of bootlegger's who widespread it in the UK.
Curiously, "Protest Songs" did what "From Langley Park To Memphis" couldn't, offered a proper sequel to "Steve McQueen", this record is arguably as good as the first one, delivered a similar sound as its predecessor without the definitive sound of "Steve Mcqueen", the record offered nostalgia, heartbreak and irony, the desolate "Dublin" is a perfect example about the IRA and its methods of spreading propaganda, "Tiffany's" an older song who has this fine tasty jangle pop, "Diana" is about the Princess of Wales weaving stories of jealousy and betrayal, "Talking Scarlet" is about a love story between the narrator and Scarlet, "Pearly Gates" is a desolately beautiful song in its wake, and vibrant and joyful "Life Of Surprises" which is in fact the only track to represent the album on the 1992 compilation of the band and also had a video.
The album never received the same praised as "Steve McQueen", no singles were released, and it's incredible but this is an album ignored by all die hard fans of the band, no wonder why?, despite following the same template and lyrical subject to "Steve McQueen", but things tend to change, and practically I think is just a matter of time before the greatness of "Protest Songs" will be discovered appealing for a new generation that can enjoy and appreciate this gem for sure.
The single "Love Buzz" was a cover of the bizarre dutch rock band Shocking Blue, "About A Girl" was a dedication to Cobain's former girlfriend, a little bit pop sound but catchy at once, "Blew" was another cool one alongside "Been A Son" and "Stain", the reflective "Negative Creep" was another essential an all-time favourite in the band's playlist amongst fans. The album had certain curiosities, Dale Crover of the Melvins played the drums originally, but then, the band decided to use Chad Channing but he had certain issues during the recordings with "Floyd The Barber", "Paper Cuts" and "Downer" and the band didn't like it, so they decided to remixed Crover recordings, another musician was Jason Everman, he put the $606 the band needed to finish the recording sessions, so he joined the band as a second musician but then due the lack of afinity, he quitted the band but remains on the album credits.
The album was about to be called "Too Many Humans" but then it was renamed "Bleach" after Cobain found and AIDS prevention poster while Nirvana was driving through San Francisco, featuring the slogan "Bleach Your Works", and the cover was photographed by Cobain's former girlfriend Tracy Marander during a concert at the Reki Muse art Gallery in Olympia, Washington.
Bleach did not sell well but received positive rewiews from critics, some called this is the biggest, baddest sound from Sub Pop, so primitive that they manage Mudhoney to sound like Genesis, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth was impressed by the album, called completely melodious but also punk vibes, and this was the inspiration the band use to record "Goo" in 1990, the album defined the entire decade of the 90's, and this was the essence and their most essential record of their catalogue.
Bleach Track List:
Released on 13 June 1989, "Heart Shaped World" was the third studio album by rockabilly heartthrob Chris Isaak, it was the artist breakthrough album featured the smash single "Wicked Game". The album spawnd three singles "Wicked Game", "Don't Make Dream About You" & "Spanish Blue Sky", and reached No. 10 on Billboard 200, the single "Wicked Game" reached No. 6 on Billboard top 100.
The album was originally released in the summer of 1989, and reached No. 149 on Billboard 200, but things were about to change, when Lee Chesnut music director in WAPW in Atlanta played the song "Wicked Game" over two weeks constantly after hearing and instrumental version on the soundtrack from the 1990 David Lynch film "Wild At Heart", so couple of years later, the single was re-released and this propelled the album straight to top 10 in USA, the video for the single filmed in black and white amd featured topless diva Helena Christensen and a shirtless Isaak on the beach became a landmark and it shown on heavy rotation on MTV.
Chris Isaak was no new to music, he released two albums before "Silvertone" in 1985 and "Chris Isaak" in 1987 but despite the good critics and merit, there was no commercial breakthrough, according to artist: "We got some radio play before, and I don't really feel slighted because most of the people I like who are getting a lot of play have six albums out or so,” back in June 1989, so this is only my third album. I just figure if I keep doing stuff that I like, eventually I'll find people that like it too. The tough thing about radio is I've met a lot of people in it who like my music. But it's hard for them to figure out how to play what they like when there's somebody up above them yelling 'you have to play this.' It's weird. I'll go to radio stations and the deejay will say, 'I can't play your record, but will you autograph it?'”
As a sort kind of prophecy, and even in spite his brand new album received good critics, originally only reached no more than No. 149 on the Billboard 200, so Isaak's label Reprise was about to retire any support on it, and his contract was under risk, the finest "Don't Make Me Dream About You" did little on the ariwaves, and after just ten weeks, the album dissapeared from the charts, son Isaak and his bandmates were back in the studio within a year to begin a new recording, so all in a sudden, Isaak become succesful overnight, "Wicked Game" reached the No. 6 on top ten and the album reached No. 7 early in April 1991.
But besides this heavy sexy track, the album is beautiful, Isaak aching vocal and a desolate sound underneath a drumm loop, a simple bass line and muted background vocals to create a haunting vibe, "Wicked Game" remain as an isolation and regret track until now, but you also have "In The Heat Of The Jungle" a curious six-minute jam between Isaak, Wilsey and the bassist Rowland Sally and the drummer Kenney Dale Johnson, the vibrant power ballad "Don't Make Dream About You" is a fantastic standard on its own.
The emotional "Diddley Daddy" so playful and tasty, "Forever Young" optimistic with its rapid two-step beat and fine guitar riff, the emotionals "Nothing's Changed" and "Kings Of The Highway", are enough rockabilly to captivate audiences, "Blue Spanish Sky" is a dramatic ballad, so slow and sad, and the distant trumpet solo give chills to audiences, it was supposed to performed by Chet Baker, but the trumpeter died in May 1988.
Probably the most enduring impact this album had on Isaak is that allowed the artist to remain authentically for years, an outsider and with image too uncommon to be a part of the common pop scene, but this album was the spark that powered Isaak to many opportunities, play roles on films and television: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Friends, Little Buddha, and his own "The Chris Isaak Show", finally "Heart Shaped World provide Isaak a unique embodiment of Americana style, achieving recognition and affection on his own.
Unfortunately, Hardy was diagnosed with cancer 20 years ago and had been in declining health. Born on January 17, 1944 during the Nazi-occupied Paris, she had a career in music and also a film career in the 1960's and 1970s, highlighted by the famous film "Grand Prix" John Frankenheimer’s road-racing drama starring James Garner, Antonio Sabato Jr., Yves Montand and Eva Marie Saint, and several famous drivers in active back then such as Phil Hill, Graham Hill, Jo Siffert, Jim Clark & Bruce McLaren amognst others, the film eventually won three Oscars, for Sound, Sound Effects and Editing.
Hardy broke out with the 1962 hit "Tous Les Garçons Et Les Filles" (All The Boys Y Las Hijas) which topped the singles charts in her homeland and several other countries. She followed that with a second French No. 1, single "C’est à L’amour Auquel Je Pense" (That Love Is What I Think). She was well-known for her melancholic style, she epitomized the “yé-yé” wave style, achieving nearly a dozen Top 10 singles in France through the 1960s, and scored nine Top 10 albums there, her most recent in 2018. She remains among the best-selling French recording artists.
Hardy also had success in Belgium, Germany and French-speaking Canada, along with three mid-’60s Top 30 singles in the UK, but curiously she never charted in the U.S. even thought, she ranked No. 162 on Rolling Stone‘s 2023 list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.
She also was a writter authored several fiction and non-fiction books and alos had a curious side career in astrology, she was married to French singer-songwriter Jacques Dutronc in the 1980s and had one child, named Thomas.
The fact is that Nagel's technical art assistant, Barry Hahn, has confirmed on Instagram that the image of Tarlazzi photograph of Hunt wearing a paisley blouse, graphic cat-eyed spectacles, and a fedora hat was her, not unlike bassist John Taylor's, but still instantly identifiable thanks to her beautiful, toothy grin, was indeed the tear sheet used by his former boss.
According to memories by Annie Zaleski's 33 ½ book about the Rio album, Duran Duran's co-manager in the early '80s, Paul Berrow, was intrigued by Nagel's sharp, stylized work while flipping through an issue of Playboy, so he commissioned the artist to do create two covers for what would become the Birmingham band's breakthrough album back then. The first option, was a woman languidly reclining with a yellow blossom pinned in her hair, was eventually used for the for the "My Own Way" single art cover, but when the band members saw the second's stronger image of a bare-shouldered bombshell alluringly staring down the camera lens, shining and really showing all she can, everyone at the band instantly said: 'Yes, that's it. That's the cover,'.
Then, the renowned graphic designer Malcolm Garrett, well-known for his striking, minimalist album art for acts such like Human League, Culture Club, and the Buzzcocks, added design elements and typefaces to evoke the vintage vacation vibes of 1950s cigar boxes. Nick Rhodes told Zaleski: "It just seemed to represent everything we wanted at that point. It was uplifting. It was fun. It was modern, and colorful, and bright, and optimistic, but with something in it that you just didn't know what was going on."
The trendy artwork similarly captivated music fans of the early-MTV generation, the aspirational promises of champagne & jet-setting yacht adventures. That was a theme that of course carried over into Duran Duran's tropical music videos from the album, in which Nagel's glamour girls seemed to spring to three-dimensional life. That was in fact part of the "Rio" era's appeal for the band's largely female fanbase was undoubtedly its pro-woman imagery. Duran Duran's music video always depicted strong, self-assured women, which was a welcome contrast from the usual video vixens that starred in other exploitative clips of the time.
About why it took more than four decades for the real Rio to be
identified, Nagel, who conducted very few interviews during his brief
lifetime, unfortunately he died less than two years after the "Rio" album's
release, at age 38, he suffered a
heart attack after participating in a celebrity "aerobathon". Then Hunt
retired from modeling and now leads a much more reclusive life.
According to her instagram account which was last updated in 2021, she describes her as a formet top model in Paris, anow she and her husband of three decades have owned and operated the "Dos Lagos Vineyards" winery in Napa of the past 12 years,
Duran Duran were apparently just as surprised as anyone by this news: "WOW!... We suspect the model and maybe the band Duran Duran had no idea Nagel was influenced and used this image to create the cover of their musical masterpiece, He certainly changed many things, most specifically removing her glasses, but he obviously loved her smile. And that smile has been an iconic piece of Duran Duran history for decades, the photo for the album cover was pulled from Vogue Paris issued in February 1981.
The band decided to record the album and to include Pavement's bassist, Mark Ibold, after Kim Gordon suggested recuriting him for live shows, this effect was intense because the songs the band recorded were taken different insights, which seems to be a different musical project each day and each week with certain dynamic aspect that unmatched with the style and sound the band were doing through all the years, practically, the inspiration had a certain "Daydream Nation" air, something the band forgot long time ago, but it's evident that is there.
Unfortunately when the band finally found their mojo, the split came in with the band members starting parallel projects on their own, even Lee Ranaldo delivered a record, but nothing like to see and hear the band recording and playing together again.
Purple Track List:
Released on June 4, 1984 "Born In The U.S.A." was the seventh studio album by the American singer Bruce Springsteen, co-produced alongside Steven Van Zandt and the E Street band, the album became a masive hit-selling recording back then, spawned seven succesful singles "Dancing In The Dark", Cover Me", "Born In The U.S.A.", "I'm On Fire", Glory Days", "I'm Goin' Down", & "My Hometown".
Springsteen have taken a different turn a couple years before with "Nebraska" sponsored by this style, he embraced for full complete on his following recording, althought he decided to gave some pop touch, then the result was this in order to keep untouch the protest spirit, so that was the way the hymn "Born In The U.S.A." emerged as protest song about every solider sent to Vietnam and not an exaltation song about the American way of life, another big one was "Dancing In The Dark", a truly hymn on Springsteens career, it was a mayor global hit single, played on radio, MTV and everywhere still today on heavy rotation, the straightforward rock song "Cover Me", it describes a love story wherein the narrator, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, pleas for his lover to stay with him and protect him from the outside world.was another fantastic tune, the sexy and touching "I'm On Fire" then the smooth, warm, and nostalgic "Glory Days" another pop pleasure indeed, "I'm Goin' Down" is a rock song[ with elements of rockabilly. Its upbeat music contrasts with the lyrics, with tell a sad story about a couple on the verge of a break-up, "My Hometown is a sweet an romantic folk ballad that tells the narrator story grows up and experiencies living in his hometown, "Bobby Jean" was about his colleague Steve Van Zandt, the loony "Working On The Highway" that hides a raw message, and the thrilling "No Surrender".
This turns the album into a massive recording, reaching the charts and stay there for about 143 weeks and seeling more than 30 millones copies worldwide, half on the United States. The album had themes about love, home, honesty and all those qualities emerged from the deepest of the soul, exploring the "Heartland Rock" where Tom Petty and John Mellencamp were their top performers, but this album was a game-changer turning the album into a massive one and still relevant nowadays, althought it sounds like a Springsteen greatest hits recording due the succesfull of their singles and the misunderstood by politicians on their lyrics.
The album was praised as an accessible record with new musical elements, pleasing longtime fans and attract new ones, an album full of rich musical and lyrical textures that expanded Springsteen reputation as a rock and roll hero, indeed this album was a more accessible version of "Nebraska" a more easily digestible for wider audiences, an upper version with more sophistication and spirit.
