Bunny Wailer, was an inspirational singer-songwriter and percussionist. He was an original member of the Jamaican reggae group The Wailers along with Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. He was a 3-time Grammy Award winner, and is considered one of the longtime standard-bearers of reggae music.
The life of guitar virtuoso Pat Martino can be told in two chapters. Before 1980, he was a prodigy, who quit school at age 15, moved from Philadelphia to Harlem and became a prodigious session player. At 22, he recorded a landmark debut album. Then, at age 35, after suffering seizures, he experienced a brain aneurism and couldn’t remember his own name. This was chapter two. Over the next two decades, Martino would work to recover his speech and memory and remaster his instrument, reaching new levels of musical artistry and acclaim before finally succumbing to respiratory disease in November 2021. Pat Martino. No one ever worked harder to make music sound so effortless.
You might not have known his name, but his tone will always strike a chord. As a founding member of the L.A. band Poco, Rusty Young was responsible for putting the pedal steel guitar on the rock ‘n roll map and pioneering the Laurel Canyon sound that brought country and pop into harmony. When original songwriters Jim Messina and Richie Furay left the band in the early 70s, Young would step up to author several of the band’s biggest hits. He continued to perform with various versions of Poco until shortly before his death in April of 2021. Rusty Young has left us, but his sound will sustain.