Elvin Shepherd

popular name: Frederick Loewe

date_of_death: February 1, 1988

age: 86

cause_of_death: Cardiac arrest

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Frederick Loewe was was an Austrian-American composer who collaborated with lyricist Alan Jay Lerner on a series of Broadway musicals, including classic musicals like Gigi, Camelot, My Fair Lady, Paint Your Wagon and Brigadoon. A one of the most successful collaborations in American musical history Lerner and Loewe produced such songs as Almost Like Being in Love, I Could Have Danced All Night, On the Street Where You Live, I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face and If Ever I Would Leave You. Loewe was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972 and seven years later, in 1979, he was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.

popular name: Wilbert Harrison

date_of_death: October 26, 1994

age: 65

cause_of_death: Stroke

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Wilbert Harrison, singer, songwriter and musician is known for recording the definitive version of “Kansas City,” one of the great rock and roll songs of all time. Released in 1959, it was #1 on the R&B charts for seven consecutive weeks and #1 on the pop charts for two weeks. Written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, whose catalog of hits includes “Jailhouse Rock” and “Smokey Joe’s Cafe,” the song was originally titled, “K.C. Lovin.'” Harrison’s limited chart success after Kansas City wasn’t due to not trying. Over the years he would cut nearly three dozen singles. He toured extensively with a backing band called “The Roamers”. In 1969 Harrison recorded “Let’s Work Together (Part 1),” which reached the pop chart. His last chart record was “My Heart Is Yours,” released in 1971. Kansas City was chosen by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, as one of the 500 songs that shaped Rock and Roll. He died at age 65 in Spencer, NC without a dime to his name. Harrison was inducted posthumously into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001 for his 1959 recording of Kansas City. He was laid to rest at North Pinewood Cemetery in Charlotte, North Carolina.

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.