Funeral Service Times August 2017 April 2019 | Page 34

34 OBITUARIES
Obituaries
Paying tribute to a few of the people to have recently passed away
MARK HOLLIS
Aged 64, 25 February
M
ark was best known as the lead singer
of the band Talk Talk, the band achieved
commercial success and critical acclaim in the
1980s and 1990s for singles including It's My
Life and Life's What You Make It. Following the
disbanding of Talk Talk in 1992, Mark released one
solo album in 1998 before largely retiring from
the music industry, following his retirement Mark
revealed in an interview that he had done so in
order to spend more time with his family.
HAL BLAINE
Aged 90, 11 March
H
KEITH FLINT
Aged 49, 4 March
K
eith was best known as a founding member of The Prodigy alongside Liam
Howlett, Leeroy Thornhill, Maxim Reality and Sharky. The band released
seven studio albums along with 23 hit singles, including two number ones.
The group’s debut single Charly became one of the most important tracks
of the rave-era, sampling the 1970s public information film Charly Says, and
in turn inspiring a number of copycats who created similar tracks sampling
children’s television programmes. Away from music Keith ran his owned his
own motorcycle racing team named Team Traction Control, he rode for his team
alongside Madness’s Lee Thompson. In 2015 Keith’s team won two Isle of Man TT
races, ridden by Ian Hutchinson.
PETER TORK
Aged 77, 21 February
P
eter was best known as the keyboard and bass player for 60s rock band The
Monkees, and was the only member to have played an instrument on all
of the band’s albums, due to the reluctance of their management to allow them
to function as a recording band. Peter wrote a number of the band’s most well
known tracks including For Pete’s Sake which was used as the theme song for the
second series of the band’s television series. With the band Peter starred in the
television series along with the band’s cult psychedelic film Head.
APRIL 2019
al was best known as a session drummer for
Phil Spector’s house band, nicknamed The
Wrecking Crew. Hal is estimated to have been
one of the most recorded studio drummers in
the history of the music industry. Hal featured on
many well known records including the Ronettes'
1963 single ‘Be My Baby’, which contained a drum
beat that became widely imitated, on songs such
as The Jesus and Mary Chain's Just Like Honey, The
Hollies' Just Like A Rock, Lykke Li's Sadness Is A
Blessing and Duran Duran's Is There Something I
Should Know. Hal played on many other records
by popular artists such as Frank Sinatra, Elvis
Presley, the Beach Boys, Simon and Garfunkel,
Neil Diamond, and the Byrds.
DICK DALE
Aged 81, 16 March
D
ick was best known as the ‘King of the Surf
Guitar’ and for his 1962 single Misirlou, which
featured in the 1994 film Pulp Fiction. During his
music career, Dick worked closely with Fender
to produce custom made amplifiers, including
the first ever 100-watt guitar amplifier. Dick
alongside his band the Del-Tones are credited
with pioneering the surf rock genre and with it
influencing many other rock genres that would
follow.
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