Dutch football legend Johan Neeskens has died. He was part of that magnificent Dutch side of the 1970s which reached the World Cup final twice in a row but unfortunately did not manage to win the trophy.
Neeskens also had a secondary assist on the superb goal – aided by a sublime pass from Johan Cruyff – he scored against Brazil in the 1974 World Cup .
Johannes Jacobus Neeskens: 15/9/1951 – 6/10/202. So it goes.
Kris Kristofferson, who died last week, was a man of many parts (literally as an actor but also a Rhodes Scholar, a soldier, helicopter pilot, singer and songwriter.)
It is for his songwriting and acting he will most likely be remembered for. Classic songs like Me and Bobby McGhee, For the Good Times and this one.
Kris Kristofferson: Help Me Make It Through the Night
Maggie Smith, thespian extraordinaire, has died. (I almost wrote actress rather than thespian but that word has fallen out of favour in the past couple of decades. In any case her work surpasses that of male members of her profession.)
Her name must be one of the most recognisable in British life over the past fifty or so years. A Grande Dame of British acting, her ability to hold the eye and dominate a scene was all but unsurpassed.
Margaret Natalie (Maggie) Smith: 28/12/1934 − 27/9/2024. So it goes.
Sérgio Mendes, who popularised Bossa Nova in the 1960s, has died.
I remember this very familiar tune as getting a lot of airplay at the time but it wasn’t a hit in the UK. (Only Never Gonna Let You Go was, and it only got to no. 45 in 1983.) It is however probably the one for which he will be most remembered.
Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66: Mas Que Nada
Sérgio Santos Mendes: 11/2/1941 – 5/9/2024. So it goes.
Former Liverpool and Scotland footballer Ron Yeats has died.
His arrival at the club, along with Ian St John, was credited by the legendary Bill Shankly as being the turning point to propel Liverpool to the top of the English game in the 1960s. Prior to their signings Liverpool had been jogging along as a middling Second Division club. So impressed was Shankly by Yeats that he immediately made him captain. Promotion followed straightaway, then two Championships sandwiched Liverpool’s first ever FA Cup win. Such was his stature that he was nicknamed “The Colossus”.
Given all that it now seems surprising that Yeats was only ever capped by Scotland twice.
Ronald (Ron) Yeats: 15/11/1937 – 6/9/2024. So it goes.
Macinnes’s novel deals with the ocean depths as well as outer space. Appropriate really as Arthur C Clarke was also interested in both. As well as many outer space works he also wrote The Deep Range.
The list of people who played in his band, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, contains many who became luminaries, Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Peter Green, John McVie, Mick Fleetwood, Aynsley Dunbar, Mick Taylor. He seems to have had a talent for uncovering musicians with much to give to the world. For that, British rock music still owes Mayall a debt.
John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers: All Your Love
John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers: Tears in my Eyes
John Brumwell Mayall: 29/11/1933 – 22/7/2024. So it goes.
Her first novel, The Country Girls, made her something of a bête noire among traditionalists in her homeland, a reputation only added to with its successors Girl with Green Eyes and Girls in Their Married Bliss. As well as those – very short – novels I have also read the equally short novel Night and her first collection of short stories The Love Object.
All concise and to the point.
Josephine Edna O’Brien: 15/12/1930 – 27/7/2024. So it goes.
