three recent music-related deaths

Three people who contributed so much to American music died recently.

First, a man whose influence over popular music cannot be underestimated. Jerry Wexler - pioneer, producer, visionary - died last week at 91.

Jerry Wexler, the legendary record man, music producer and ageless hipster, died at 3:45 a.m. today at the age of 91. Wexler was one of the great music business pioneers of the 20th century: as co-head of Atlantic Records from 1953 to '75, he and his partner Ahmet Ertegun grew the small independent R&B label into the major record company that it is today.

Wexler was much more than a top executive — he was a national tastemaker and a prophet of roots and rhythm. The impact of his deeds matched his larger-than-life personality. Because of him, we use the term "rhythm and blues" and we hail Ray Charles as "Genius" and Aretha Franklin as "Queen." We came to know of a record label called Stax and a small town called Muscle Shoals, Alabama. We witnessed the rise of Led Zeppelin and the Allman Brothers, and we care about a thing called soul.

In the '50s, Wexler's studio work helped introduce white ears to the royalty of R&B: Ray Charles, Big Joe Turner, the Drifters, LaVern Baker, Chuck Willis. In the '60s as the age of R&B gave way to the rock and soul era, Wexler and Ertegun steered Atlantic into a lead position among labels, releasing music by Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin, Cream and Led Zeppelin, Solomon Burke and Wilson Pickett, Duane Allman, and Willie Nelson. In the '70s, Wexler departed Atlantic and went freelance, producing soundtracks for films by Louis Malle and Richard Pryor, and recording albums with Bob Dylan, Dire Straits, and Etta James and others.

Wexler was a throwback to a time when record men could be found in the studio and the office, producing the music and running the company. Blessed with big ears — they really were large — his productions generated a staggering number of gold and platinum records. The collective impact of the music he personally produced or somehow ushered into being won him nearly every lifetime honor in the music world. In 1987, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, one of the first non-performers to receive the honor. Tuxedoed and hale, he summed up his work at Atlantic: "We were making rhythm and blues music — black music by black musicians for black adult buyers perpetrated by white Jewish and Turkish entrepreneurs."

The other two passings were both musicians, people whose sound I hope you know, even though you may not know their names.

Don Helms, whose piercing, haunting steel guitar can be heard on over 100 Hank Williams recordings, including 10 of Williams' 11 number-one country hits, died last week. He was the last surviving member of Hank Williams' legendary Drifting Cowboys group.

Here is Helms in 1968, playing "Cold, Cold Heart", and perhaps less familiar, "Bye, Bye Blues". His New York Times obit is here.

Finally, Buddy Harman, whose drumming is heard on thousands of recordings by Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, George Jones, Roy Orbinson and dozens of other greats, died in his hometown of Nashville at age 79. Some of the songs on which Harman supplied rythmn are Cash's "Ring of Fire," Roger Miller's "King of the Road", the Everly Brothers' "Bye Bye Love," Simon and Garfunkel's "Boxer", and Brenda Lee's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree." That's just a tiny sample. An exhaustive list would be very, very long.

Here's Harman's page at Drummerworld.com, his credits with the Nashville "A-Team", and his New York Times obit.