Musicians who overlapped in unexpected ways
Igor Stravinsky, who died on 6th April 1971, outlived Jimi Hendrix, who died on 18th September 1970.
The Velvet Underground & Nico was released in 1967, the same year as Louis Armstrong's What A Wonderful World.
Ronnie James Dio began releasing music before the Beatles did. His band Ronnie & The Red Caps released a 7" single in 1958. The Beatles’ first commercial single Love Me Do charted in 1962.
In his last interview in December 1980, John Lennon said he admired The B-52s song Rock Lobster and that it helped inspire him to start recording again after a five-year break.
George Harrison’s last interview was a Yahoo! Webchat Q&A on 15th February 2001, in which he made fun of Eminem (“What’s Eminem? Aren’t they chocolates or something?”)
There was an almost six-month period (between 17th October 1972 and 8th April 1973) during which both Pablo Picasso and Eminem were alive.
There was an almost seven-month period (20th February to 12th September 2003) during which both Johnny Cash and Olivia Rodrigo were alive.
Jazz pianist Eubie Blake was likely born in 1887, the son of parents who were born into slavery, and appeared on Saturday Night Live on 10th March 1979, making him the oldest ever SNL musical guest at 92. He would have been in his 30s during WWI, making him almost too old for the draft.
Fred Astaire personally praised Michael Jackson’s Motown 25 performance (the moonwalk). Michael Jackson later described Astaire’s letter as one of the greatest compliments he’d ever received.
Miles Davis was a big fan of U2 and The Beastie Boys. On his deathbed, he reportedly played U2’s The Unforgettable Fire and The Beastie Boys’ Pauls Boutique.
Frank Sinatra’s New York New York was first released in 1979, the same year The Beastie Boys first formed.
Frank Sinatra died 14th May 1998, the same night Seinfeld’s finale aired. Local officials later said the ambulance response was unusually quick and attributed part of that to empty streets because many people were home watching the finale.
You Got It by Roy Orbison, his final top 10 hit, was released in 1989, the same year as Nirvana’s Bleach.
Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich was still writing classical music in 1975, when The Bee Gees were making disco albums.
Country music legend Gram Parsons (1946-1973) and punk singer-songwriter Jonathan Richman (b. 1951) were acquaintances and played together on occasion. “Gram played guitar for me sometimes," said Richman. "If he’d lived, he mighta sang on a record or two with me". On the day before Parsons' death, he and Richman had played miniature golf and discussed recording together.
Vera Lynn (1917-2020) lived long enough to duet with Wicked star Cynthia Erivo in 2017. The 1979 Pink Floyd song Vera used her as a reference to an era that had become a distant memory. But Lynn lived for another four decades after the song was released, outliving both Syd Barrett and Richard Wright, Pink Floyd members who would have heard her songs as children. Johnny Cash, who was 15 years younger than Vera Lynn, recorded a version of her signature tune We'll Meet Again shortly before his death. Lynn would outlive Cash by another 17 years.
