We were saddened to receive the news that Ms. Badwound passed in late January. We were unable to find more information at this time but wanted to honor Pat as she was a dedicated and loyal COMBO member for several years. Pat was able to attend our Holiday Dinner at the Downtown Aquarium last December so we had a very pleasant evening visiting with her then.
Pat sent a song into our Songwriting Contest this past session but she really only wanted a critique from our judges. They all thought the song was really good and all of us were surprised that such discrimination continues for the Native Americans.
Please read the lyrics carefully and continue the fight for our oldest generations.
I Want to Vote on the Reservation © ® by Patricia Badwound
Verse 1:
I’ve been known to make a lot of noise
I am not afraid to raise my voice
I will never suffer silently
any effort made to suppress me
First defenders of their sacred land
Warriors with their countrymen still stand
Years of struggle should have earned the right
To cast a ballot shouldn’t be a fight.
CHORUS:
Invisible to this administration
are the voters on the reservation
Silent voices of a sovereign nation
I just want to vote on the reservation.
Verse 2:
Barriers at polls to keep us out
the message is that our votes do not count
No mail boxes on unnamed red roads.
First Peoples shouldn’t be the last to vote.
We’ve been known to make a lot of noise
We are not afraid to raise our voice
Years of struggle should have earned the right
To cast a ballot shouldn’t be a fight.
CHORUS 2X
I just want to vote from the reservation.
(Pat went on to explain that, since reservations are considered by the present U.S. Government administration to be “Sovereign Nations,” the people who live on them are NOT “residents of the United States.” Therefore, they are not allowed to vote. And, with the new rules saying that residents must have a street address – not a PO Box number – that makes it even harder because the houses on reservations do not have “street addresses.”) (Same rules apply to small towns in Mississippi and Alabama where the roads do not have names nor do the houses have “addresses.”)
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, please check them out at http://www.wikipedia.com
February 2026
4: François Beukelaers, 88, Belgian actor (Brussels by Night, The Over-the-Hill Band, Stormforce), stage director and singer; Tōsha Meishō, 84, Japanese hayashi musician.
3: Ron Kenoly, 81, American Christian worship leader, singer and songwriter; Lamonte McLemore, 90, American singer (The 5th Dimension).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamonte_McLemore
2: James Moschello, 88, American singer (The Elegants); Chuck Negron, 83, American singer (Three Dog Night), heart failure and COPD; Yuan Wei-jen, 57, Taiwanese singer-songwriter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Negron
1: Fernando Esteso, 80, Spanish comedian, actor (Al este del oeste, Torrente 4: Lethal Crisis, Uncertain Glory), and singer, respiratory failure; Ken Peplowski, 66, American jazz clarinetist and tenor saxophonist; Steve Washington, 67, American musician (Slave, Aurra).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Peplowski
January 2026
31: Miklós Fenyő, 78, Hungarian singer, songwriter and musician, complications from pneumonia; Mingo Lewis, 72, American percussionist and drummer (Santana, Al Di Meola, The Tubes); Billy Bass Nelson, 75, American Hall of Fame bass guitarist (Parliament-Funkadelic).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mingo_Lewis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Bass_Nelson
https://happymag.tv/billy-bass-nelson-death/
30: Abdelhadi Belkhayat, 85, Moroccan singer; Parthenon Huxley, 70, American musician (ELO Part II); H. Robert Reynolds, 91, American musician and conductor; Fatih Ürek, 59, Turkish singer and actor (Where’s Firuze?), complications from a heart attack.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenon_Huxley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Robert_Reynolds
29: Wojciech Michniewski, 78, Polish composer and conductor; Morley Robertson, 63, Japanese-American musician, DJ and broadcaster, esophageal cancer.
28: Maroochy Barambah, 70, Australian Turrbal elder and mezzo-soprano singer; Nilton César, 86, Brazilian singer; Bryan Loren, 59, American songwriter (“Do the Bartman”).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Loren
27: António Chainho, 88, Portuguese fado guitarist; Vladislav Chernushenko, 90, Russian conductor; Nigel Ogden, 71, British theatre organist and radio presenter (The Organist Entertains).
26: Richie Beirach, 78, American jazz pianist and composer; Danny Coughlan, 55, British singer and guitarist; Sly Dunbar, 73, Jamaican drummer (Sly and Robbie), record producer (“Underneath It All”), and songwriter (“Murder She Wrote”), cancer; Hardy Hepp, 81, Swiss musician and painter; Béla Lattmann [hu], 65, Hungarian jazz bassist; Ian McDougall, 87, Canadian jazz trombonist and academic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richie_Beirach
25: Jean Cussac, 103, French baritone (The Swingle Singers) and music director; Gabe Lopez, 48, American songwriter and producer, lymphoma; Abhijit Majumdar, 54, Indian composer and music director (Sasura Ghara Zindabad, Balunga Toka, Daha Balunga), liver disease; Marie Rouanet, 89, French singer and writer; Lucky Widja, 49, Indonesian actor, singer, and songwriter, complications from tuberculosis; Kazuhito Yamashita, 64, Japanese guitarist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabe_Lopez
24: Yuri Rymanov, 69, Russian guitarist (Lyube).
23: Dalibor Brun, 81, Croatian singer; Lula Lahfah, 26, Indonesian social media personality, singer, and actress; Margaret Ross, 83, American singer (The Cookies).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cookies
22: Francis Buchholz, 71, German bass guitarist (Scorpions), cancer; Guy Hovis, 84, American singer (The Lawrence Welk Show); Stefania Stella, Italian actress and singer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Buchholz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Hovis
21: José Cuéllar, 85, American anthropologist and musician, lung cancer; Kristinn Svavarsson, 78, Icelandic saxophonist (Mezzoforte); Rob Hirst, 70, Australian Hall of Fame musician (Midnight Oil, Ghostwriters) and songwriter (“Forgotten Years”), pancreatic cancer; Yaw Sarpong, 66, Ghanaian gospel musician and songwriter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Cuelllar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Hirst