Writer Paul Auster has died.

I must admit I haven’t read any of his work but the good lady has and she was impressed, apart from one book she said had an “unnerving” ending.

Another author I ought to catch up on.

Paul Benjamin Auster: 3/2/1947 – 30/4/2024. So it goes.

Guitarist, singer and songwriter Dickey Betts of the Allman Brothers Band has died.

Among other songs he wrote perhaps the band’s most famous track, Jessica, used as the signature tune for the TV programme Top Gear.

Despite that tune’s lasting appeal the band never had a hit in the UK.

This, another of his compositions, was their biggest in the US.

The Allman Brothers Band: Ramblin’ Man

Forrest Richard (Dickey) Betts: 12/12/1943 – 18/4/2024. So it goes.

Experimental novelist John Barth has died.

I must admit I’ve not read anything  by him but I believe I have a copy of his book The Sot-Weed Factor somewhere in the house or garage. I bought it years ago but never got round to it because it seemed to be very lengthy.

Maybe some day.

John Simmons Barth: 27/5/1930 – 2/4/2024. So it goes.

Probably the best spin bowler ever to play for England, certainly in the post Second World War era, Derek Underwood, has died. 297 Test wickets is a great tally for a spin bowler, and they were taken in varying conditions all around the world. It seemed to be his accuracy over line and length, which pinned batsmen down, rather than the spin he could generate, which marked him out, though his varying pace of delivery, all faster than more conventional spinners, was his main weapon. He was the youngest player to take 100 wickets in a debut season and overall took 2,465 wickets at an average of 20.28.

Later in his career he blotted his copybook by taking part in a rebel tour to South Africa, then under sporting sanctions due to its apartheid regime. As a result he never played for England again.

Derek Leslie Underwood: 8/6/1945  – 5/4/2024. So it goes.

Sad to hear that Chris Cross, bass guitarist with 1980s synthesiser band Ultravox, has died.

In 1982 this was Ultravox’s third biggest hit up to that point.

Ultravox: Reap the Wild Wind

Christopher Thomas Allen (Chris Cross,) 14/7 1952 – 25 /3/2024. So it goes.

I saw in Saturday’s Guardian that author Lynne Reid Banks has died.

I hadn’t known she had been a reporter with ITN in the 1950s. My first knowledge of her came when I read The L-Shaped Room and its sequels many years ago.

I didn’t read her again until last year with her novels about the Brontë siblings, The Dark Quartet, and then Charlotte, Path to the Silent Country.

Most of her work, including her best known book for children, The Indian in the Cupboard, passed me by I’m afraid.

Lynne Reid Banks: 31/7/1929 – 4/4/202. So it goes.

By force majeure another 1970s song. For Steve Harley has also left us.

I posted Cockney Rebel’s first single Sebastian here, their biggest hit Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) – a storming no. 1 – here, and a later cover of George Harrison’s song Here Comes the Sun here.

This song was the first of Cockney Rebel’s (and therefore Steve’s) songs I ever heard. A no. 5 in 1974.

Cockney Rebel: Judy Teen

Stephen Malcolm Ronald Nice (Steve Harley) 27/2/1951 – 17/3/2024. So it goes.

This week Welsh musician, Karl Wallinger, also left us.

He wrote Don’t Bang the Drum for The Waterboys’ third LP This is the Sea before leaving to form the group World Party

I’ve featured their songs here and here.

His 1997 song, She’s the One, was later made a hit by Robbie Williams.

The Waterboys: Don’t Bang the Drum

World Party: Ship of Fools

Karl Edmond De Vere Wallinger: 19/10/1957 – 10/3/2024. So it goes.

So US songwriter and Eric Carmen has left the chorus.

As a solo performer he was perhaps most famous for writing and singing All by Myself and for the hit Hungry Eyes.

He had in the early 1970s been in the US group The Raspberries for whom he wrote this song.

The Raspberries: Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)

Eric Howard Carmen: 11/8/1949 – 11?/3/2024. So it goes.

Last week one of British Science Fiction’s stalwarts, Brian Stableford, died.

Of the more than eighty books he published in his lifetime I have a mere eight on my shelves. He also wrote many shorter works of  fiction, being a copious contributor to Interzone over the years.

I see from the BSFA’s obituary in the link above that he also translated over 200 novels of early French SF and Fantasy into English. Prolific doesn’t cover it.

Brian Michael Stableford: 25/7/1948 – 24/2/2024. So it goes.