From Dave Magoun: One year ago today I lost my brother and best friend. I wanted to express some of my feelings and celebrate a life dear to me. Words just don’t seem adequate in times like these to convey feelings your head and your heart don’t want to acknowledge. My brother was a musical genius, and he spoke the universal language fluently. He wrote literally thousands of songs, some of them extremely complex. What continually amazed me was that he remembered them all note for note. I’m a musician myself and have written a mere hundred songs or so, but if I don’t play them regularly, I have to teach them back to myself. He remembered everything, even my songs.
Daniel enjoyed playing rock music – he could play Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman, whomever, note for note, but still it wasn’t much of a challenge to play most remedial cover tunes. His true calling was in the classical genre, and playing as accompanist for dancers was a big part of that. He decided to focus on his solo material in his last years, and I was glad to be able to help him with that.
The beautiful music he has written will go on. How many times have you listened to a song that brought tears of joy to your eyes? I can’t tell you how many times that’s happened to me with Daniel’s music. The thing is, even though he wrote out most of his songs for sheet music, no one will ever have the touch to play them the way he did. The loss to the music world is staggering. My personal loss is too much to contemplate, besides being my brother, he was my best friend. We were making plans to do a duo together which will never happen now. But I do plan to continue his legacy into the future. So many times, a true artist will pass away and the true genius of his or her talent is only realized after they’re gone. So it will be with Daniel.
Here’s a sample of one of his performances with the Ballet5280 dancers. The choreography created for his song “Dance of the Clouds”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vr2PRE94U4U
~ Dave Magoun
Photo: Daniel Magoun
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Other Notable Musicians’ Deaths…
Again, the number of deaths from COVID is astounding. Please get vaccinated. Truly may save your life. If you want to know more about any of the musicians we lost this past week, please check out http://www.wikipedia.com
October 2021
5: Pat Fish, 64, English musician (The Jazz Butcher).
4: Lizzie Bravo, 70, Brazilian backing vocalist (“Across the Universe”), complications from heart disease.
3: Anouman Brou Félix, 86, Ivorian musician; Gianpiero Taverna, 89, Italian conductor and composer.
2: John Rossall, 75, English musician (The Glitter Band); Sebastião Tapajós, 78, Brazilian guitarist and composer.
1: Raymond Gniewek, 89, American violinist; Ewert Ljusberg, 76, Swedish musician, president of the Republic of Jamtland (since 1989); Robin Morton, 81, Irish folk musician.
September 2021
30: Lennart Åberg, 79, Swedish jazz saxophonist and composer; Carlisle Floyd, 95, American opera composer; Greg Gilbert, 44, English singer and guitarist (Delays), bowel cancer
29: Hayko, 48, Armenian singer (“Anytime You Need”), COVID-19; Bronius Kutavicius, 89, Lithuanian composer; Olivier Libaux, 57, French record producer and musician (Nouvelle Vague); Mike Renzi, 80, American composer and music director (Sesame Street); Ivan Tasovac, 55, Serbian pianist, manager, and politician, deputy (since 2020) and minister of culture and information (2013–2016).
28: Nana Ampadu, 76, Ghanaian musician; Karan Armstrong, 79, American operatic soprano; James Buswell, 74, American violinist; Tommy Kirk, 79, American actor (Old Yeller, The Shaggy Dog, The Misadventures of Merlin Jones); Phi Nhung, 51, Vietnamese-American singer and actress, COVID-19; Barry Ryan, 72, British pop singer (“Eloise”) and photographer; Lonnie Smith, 79, American jazz musician, pulmonary fibrosis; Vladimir Yabchanik, 56, Russian singer and actor (The Sovereign’s Servant).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_in_2021