Johann Strauss ll

popular name: Patsy Cline

date_of_death: March 5, 1963

age: 30

cause_of_death: Plane crash

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Patsy Cline was an American singer and performer and is considered by many to be one of the most influential vocalists of the 20th century and was one of the first country music artists to successfully cross over into pop music. Patsy had several major hits during her short eight-year recording career, including two number-one hits on the Billboard Hot Country and Western Sides chart. Struggling to make ends meet for the first half of her career, she scored a #2 hit on the charts with Willie Nelson's "Crazy" in 1961. In November 1961, she was invited to perform as part of the Grand Ole Opry's show at Carnegie Hall in New York City followed by an in-residence at the Mint in Las Vegas (a first for a female country music singer), as did appearances at the Hollywood Bowl and Carnegie Hall (a performance for which Cline did not get paid). But with the exposure and radio play of "Leavin' on Your Mind" and "Crazy," Cline was on her way to stardom. In a letter to a friend, she wrote: "It's wonderful — but what do I do for '63? It's getting so even Cline can't follow Cline." Among her many awards during her brief career, Patsy would be the first solo female artist inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in October 1973.

popular name: Coleman Hawkins

date_of_death: May 19, 1969

age: 64

cause_of_death: Liver disease

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Coleman Hawkins was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and considered by many to be the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument. Hawkins was one of the most influential tenor saxophonists in the history of jazz and a major figure in shaping the instrument’s role in the genre. He rose to prominence in the 1920s as a member of Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra, where his powerful tone and harmonic sophistication helped establish the tenor saxophone as a leading jazz instrument. In the 1930s Hawkins spent several years in Europe before returning to the United States and recording his landmark 1939 version of Body and Soul, a revolutionary performance that emphasized improvisation and advanced harmony and became one of jazz’s most celebrated recordings. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s he remained at the forefront of jazz, collaborating with emerging bebop musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk, showing a rare ability to adapt to new styles. Known for his rich, full tone and complex improvisations, Hawkins recorded extensively and continued performing internationally until the late 1960. Hawkins's virtuosic, arpeggiated approach to improvisation, with his characteristic rich, emotional, and vibrato-laden tonal style, was the main influence on a generation of tenor players that included Chu Berry, Charlie Barnet, Tex Beneke, Ben Webster, and Vido Musso. While Hawkins became known with swing music during the big band era, he had a role in the development of bebop in the 1940s.

popular name: Franco Ventriglia

date_of_death: November 28, 2012

age: 90

cause_of_death: Natural causes

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Franco Ventriglia was an opera singer who sang bass in every major European opera house during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Serving in the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing in the South Pacific during World War II upon return stateside Franco was working at his brother's filling station in Easton, Connecticut when Mario Pagano, a maestro de Canto at the American Theatre Wing Professional School heard from one of Ventriglia's coworkers about his singing talent. Ventriglia passed an audition and went on to attend the school on the G.I. Bill. After Pagano's death, Ventriglia and his wife Jean boarded the ocean liner SS Constitution for Italy. On board, after singing Ol' Man River for a group in first class, he met a businessman who asked him to contact Toti Dal Monte, a great coloratura soprano who also taught voice in Rome. Ventriglia took singing lessons from Dal Monte and eventually made his operatic debut in Palermo, singing in the Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. He later sang with Luciano Pavarotti in La bohème and Rigoletto. He performed in Samson and Delilah at La Scala, a performance he considered the highlight of his career. He returned to the U.S. in 1978, where he continued to perform at venues including Carnegie Hall, and traveled to perform in southeast Asia, until his retirement in 2001 at age 79. Upon his death he was laid to rest at Oak Lawn Cemetery in Fairfield, CT.