Featuring musical tributes to Burt Bacharach, Tony Bennett, David Crosby, Jeff Beck, George Winston and others. Lest We Forget 2023 is a music special whose sole purpose is to celebrate and honor some of the many important musicians and music industry icons who passed away in 2023.
Wayne Shorter was an American jazz saxophonist, composer and bandleader. He came to mainstream prominence in 1959 upon joining Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, for whom he eventually became the primary composer. In 1964 he joined forces with Miles Davis, before then co-founding the jazz fusion band Weather Report in 1970. He recorded more than 20 albums as a bandleader. Many Wayne Shorter compositions have become jazz standards, and his music has earned worldwide recognition and critical praise. Shorter won 12 Grammy Awards before he left us in 2023.
Writer, Producer. Orchestrator. Arranger. Player, Singer. Conductor. Genius. Thom Bell wore all the hats. As one of the Mighty Three masterminds of the Philly Sound, Bell would apply his classical training and golden ear to take Soul music to a new level of sophistication and grace. As a songwriter in partnership with lyricist Linda Creed, he penned many of the most memorable songs of the 70s, from “Betcha By Golly Wow” to “You Are Everything.” He earned a Grammy for Best Producer of the Year in 1974 and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2006. We all strive for perfection in our work. But history will remember Thom Bell as one of the few who never settled for less.
In the sandwich known as “Holland/Dozier/Holland,” Lamont Dozier was the meat in the middle. He started writing songs down on grocery bags at the kitchen table as a child and essentially never stopped. After dropping out of school at sixteen to pursue a singing career, Dozier was hired at twenty by Berry Gordy to write for Motown Records. In partnership with the Holland brothers, Brian and Eddie, Dozier would post more than 80 Top 40 hits over a nine-year span launching The Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas, Marvin Gaye and many other Motown acts into superstardom. Though he always yearned to sing his own songs, Lamont Dozier can rest easy knowing that so do the rest of us.