Photo: Freddie Cannon || By Greg Evans, Deadline || Freddy “Boom Boom” Cannon, the early rock & roller who scored big, joyful radio hits with, among others, 1959’s “Tallahassee Lassie” and 1962’s “Palisades Park,” died yesterday, July 17, at a California hospice facility following a brief battle with cancer. He was 89.
His death was announced by Tom Cuddy, a longtime friend and iHeart Radio producer. Cuddy noted that Cannon’s children Conny Weber and Billy Cannon were with him in the days before his passing.
Cannon, who earned the nickname “Boom Boom” from the percussive power of his songs as well as the double entendre of his last name, took a spot in the post-Elvis/pre-Beatles rock & roll landscape through a string of hits and, perhaps more significantly, repeated appearances on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand musical variety series.
While Clark’s program introduced Cannon to TV audiences – at first when the show was produced locally in Philadelphia and later when it went national – the singer-guitarist would also appear on such music programs of the era as Shindig, Hullabaloo, Where the Action Is and, later, The Midnight Special.
“Freddy didn’t do ballads,” Cuddy said. “Dick Clark once told me that every time he hosted an oldies concert, he asked Freddy to open it, because he knew Freddy would get the audience on their feet with up-tempo rock and roll.”
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Go here to read more and to viiew the Video of Svengoolie Stomp – which includes clips of celebrities doing the “Stomp!”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news/freddy-boom-boom-cannon-dead-palisades-park-rock-roller-was-89/
[Freddie’s songs are what got me into playing drums! ~ Barb ]
Photo: Freddie Cannon | https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Freddie_Cannon_1965.jpg
(Public Domain, pre-1965; Warner Bros.)
OTHER NOTABLE MUSICIANS’ DEATHS
Warning Signs of Suicide – National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or if you want to discuss, call the old numbers at 800-273-TALK or 800-273-8255 for English and 888-628-9454 for Spanish. Learn the signs of someone who may be contemplating suicide.
Posting for my Veteran/singer/songwriter/musician friend Troy Hoss: Heavy on my heart so here goes: This is a very real problem … 22 Veterans a day surrender to their demons. #SuicideAwareness | Call Veteran’s Hotline: 988 #1 or 844-647-1354
From Care2 via Jock Bartley on Facebook: Trump shut down our LGBTQ+ suicide and mental health hotline, but CANADA opened a US toll-free number to theirs… so our citizens can get help anytime, at no cost: 1-877-330-6366
Kindness & empathy have no borders.
If you want to know more about any of the musicians we lost, find them at http://www.wikipedia.com
July 2026
22: Oliver Jones, 91, Canadian jazz pianist; Luís Represas, 69, Portuguese singer and composer.
21: Brian Doerksen, 60, Canadian Christian singer-songwriter (Hungry, Holy God), cancer; Olivera Katarina, 86, Serbian actress (I Even Met Happy Gypsies, Goya or the Hard Way to Enlightenment, Death and the Dervish) and singer; Taras Loshak, 46, Ukrainian folk instrument craftsman; Héctor Ochoa Cárdenas, 91, Colombian musician and composer.
20: Vibert Cornwall, 87, Vincentian jazz singer; Hany Shenouda, 83, Egyptian composer, arranger and musician; Claudio Strunz, 59, Argentine thrash metal drummer (Hermética, Malón).
18: Gianni Cazzola, 88, Italian jazz drummer, heart attack; Chen Gang, 91, Chinese composer (Butterfly Lovers’ Violin Concerto); Salah Farzit, 73, Tunisian singer and composer; Jennifer Finch, 59, American musician (L7), songwriter (“Everglade”) and photographer, brain cancer; Jim Gilstrap, 79, American soul singer (“Swing Your Daddy”); Tony Thorpe, 80, English guitarist and singer (The Rubettes).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Finch
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Gilstrap
17: Freddy Cannon, 89, American singer (“Tallahassee Lassie”, “Palisades Park”), cancer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddy_Cannon
16: Alan Walden, 83, American music manager (Lynyrd Skynyrd, Otis Redding), founder of Capricorn Records. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Walden
15: Plas Johnson, 94, American soul-jazz saxophonist. || Plas John Johnson Jr. (July 21, 1931 – July 15, 2026) was an American soul-jazz and hard bop tenor saxophonist, probably most widely known as the tenor saxophone soloist on Henry Mancini’s “The Pink Panther Theme”. He also performed on alto and baritone sax as well as various flutes and clarinets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plas_Johnson
14: Rodney Holmes, 59, American drummer (Santana); Dave Kendall, 68, British television personality (120 Minutes), disc jockey (SiriusXM), and journalist; Little Gerhard, 92, Swedish singer, musician and songwriter (“Ska vi plocka körsbär i min trädgård?”); Fantan Mojah, 49, Jamaican reggae singer, heart complications.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santana_(band)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_in_2026
Photo: Freddie Cannon | https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Freddie_Cannon_1965.jpg
(Public Domain, pre-1965; Warner Bros.)
