Adam Yauch: The Beastie Boys' MCA remembered on YouTube

With news still settling around the death of Beastie Boy Adam Yauch, known to fans as MCA, the shock and remorse is spreading like a firestorm around Twitter and Facebook. Given that the Beastie Boys' "License to Ill" was a starter hip-hop record for a whole generation, legions of people who were young and alive in 1986 have a conversion story.

For me it was stomping around a suburban California neighborhood as a high school freshman with friends in the middle of the night, screaming about there being "No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn" (though none of us had much of an idea precisely where that was). It didn't matter, the Beastie Boys made it cool, goofy and just a little dangerous. The dangerous part -- at least in the early days -- was MCA, whose guttural voice and bad-guy leather-jacket persona gave the group some gravitas. He also helped establish the Beasties Boys' on-screen look by directing many of the group's videos.

Here we take a look at the group's progression via its music video presence. Not all of these are Yauch's, of course, but we get a good feel for a group developing deep sophistication and understanding  its role as pop culture avatars.

PHOTOS: Adam Yauch |1964 - 2012

Adam Yauch, founding member of the Beastie Boys, dies at 47

The Beastie Boys' Adam Yauch, best known the world over as the thoughtful, witty, in-your-face rapper MCA, has died, according to Rolling Stone and the hip-hop website Global Grind, which is run by Russell Simmons. Yauch, who had been battling cancer for the last three years, was part of a trio of New York rappers whose music starting in the 1980s transformed the budding genre and helped take hip-hop nationwide.

[Updated May 4, 11:40 a.m.: A Beastie Boys representative confirmed that Yauch "passed away in his native New York City this morning after a near-three-year battle with cancer."]

Yauch, who was 47, achieved fame with the Beastie Boys, but as their fame grew he directed his energy toward his lifelong passion: Buddhism and Tibetan independence. While he and his fellow Beastie Boys Mike Diamond (Mike D) and Adam Horovitz (Ad-Rock) continued to transform rap music through classics like "Paul's Boutique," "Check Your Head" and "Ill Communication," Yauch helped tether the group with his rhymes about peace, enlightenment and other topics far removed from the party-rap of the Beastie Boys' early music.

PHOTOS: Adam Yauch |1964 - 2012

Yauch also helped form the successful production company Oscilloscope Pictures, which released acclaimed films such as "Wendy and Lucy," "Burma VJ" and "We Need to Talk About Kevin." The Tibetan Freedom Concerts, which between 1996 and 2003 helped raise money for Tibetan independence, were the product of his work with the Milarepa Fund, a nonprofit advocacy group.

Last month the Beastie Boys were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where members Ad-Rock and Mike D accepted the award; MCA was unable to make it.

Pop & Hiss will continue to provide information as it arrives.

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Beastie Boy Adam Yauch was also a force in film world

-- Randall Roberts

Photo: Adam Yauch in 2008. Credit: Jennifer S. Altman / For The Times

Chris Ethridge, founding member of Flying Burrito Brothers, dies

Members of the International Submarine Band chose a name for their new group that practically assured it would never rise above cult status. Sure enough, that band disappeared with barely a trace after making a handful of recordings in the mid-1960s. But after ISB members Gram Parsons and Chris Ethridge teamed up with ex-Byrds singer and songwriter Chris Hillman and steel guitarist Pete Kleinow to form the pioneering country-rock group the Flying Burrito Brothers, the ISB won itself permanent footnote status in the history of pop music.

Ethridge, who died Monday at 65 at Anderson Regional Medical Center in Meridian, Miss., of complications from pancreatic cancer, was the group’s bassist, and co-wrote several songs with Parsons, widely lauded as one of the most innovative figures in the marriage of country and rock in the 1960s. Ethridge also spent about eight years in Willie Nelson’s touring band, a gig during which he recorded one of Nelson’s most famous anthems, “Whiskey River.”

“Here’s what people don’t know or don’t remember,” Hillman told The Times on Monday. “Three of Gram’s greatest songs were co-written by Chris: those would be ‘Hot Burrito #1,’ ‘Hot Burrito #2’ and ‘She.’

"And I’ve always said: Gram Parsons’ greatest recorded vocals were those two [‘Hot Burrito’] songs," Hillman said. "Maybe it’s my opinion, but I was there and I know I never heard him sing better than he did on those two songs. He just nailed ‘em.”

Hillman said he had spoken by phone over the weekend to Ethridge, who was unable to talk. Ethridge's daughter told Hillman that her father had been hospitalized with pneumonia following a round of chemotherapy for the cancer, which had been diagnosed in September.

John Christopher Ethridge was born Feb. 10, 1947 in Meridian — where the man known as the father of country music, Jimmie Rodgers, grew up — and moved when he was 17 to Los Angeles. There he met Parsons and fell in with the burgeoning group of musicians who came of age listening to Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and other seminal rock artists while also cultivating their passion for traditional country, bluegrass and folk music.

Levon Helm 'one of the last true great spirits,' writes Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan, who asked multi-instrumentalist Levon Helm and his band, the Hawks, to join him when he decided to “go electric” in the mid-'60s, has posted a short note on his website about Helm, who died after a long struggle with throat cancer on Thursday.

Together with guitarist Robbie Robertson, bassist Rick Danko, pianist Richard Manuel and organist Garth Hudson, the band once known as Levon and the Hawks became Dylan’s backing band and recorded with him very intensively during a formative period when the formerly acoustic-only folk singer was making a transition in his sound. Those recording sessions were widely bootlegged and some of them were later released in 1975 as “The Basement Tapes.”

A note on Dylan’s website states simply:

"In response to Levon's passing

"He was my bosom buddy friend to the end, one of the last true great spirits of my or any other generation. This is just so sad to talk about. I still can remember the first day I met him and the last day I saw him. We go back pretty far and had been through some trials together. I'm going to miss him, as I'm sure a whole lot of others will too."

In the late 1960s, the backing band became its own recording entity, called the Band, and recorded its own albums, including the debut “Music From Big Pink,” which included the Levon Helm-sung hit “The Weight.”

The Band also played with Dylan on albums including 1974's "Planet Waves," and finally disbanded with a final 1976 performance — which included Dylan — called “The Last Waltz,” which was recorded in a documentary film made by Martin Scorsese.

Earlier on Pop & Hiss, singer-songwriter and producer Joe Henry spoke of his love for Helm, and drew comparisons to Dylan. 

Wrote Henry, "In the same way that his great friend and sometimes-boss Bob Dylan connected the dots between Jimmy Reed, Arthur Rimbaud and Muhammad Ali, so Levon drew the second line that had Howlin’ Wolf, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Marvin Gaye and Hank Williams all dancing out in front of the same New Orleans funeral parade. (They all walked liked Bo Diddley and didn’t need no crutch.) He brought soul and an open heart to the darkest corners of rock music -- in a troubled era he helped shape and define -- and a rural humility to the grandest stages."

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— Dean Kuipers

Image: Levon Helm with the band in 1970. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Levon Helm: Joe Henry remembers 'a deacon who spoke our gospel'

Musician, songwriter and producer Joe Henry has overseen recordings by some of America’s most celebrated folk, rock, blues and jazz musicians, including Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, Allen Toussaint, Solomon Burke, John Doe, Bettye Lavette, Rodney Crowell and Mose Allison. He named his son Levon after Levon Helm, the Band’s drummer and singer who died Thursday after a long battle with throat cancer.

Henry wrote this reflection, titled "Gone/Not Gone: Levon Helm in Motion":

This past Tuesday afternoon, many of us began to receive and share word that Levon Helm was in the final stages of his long and heroic battle with cancer.

By that evening, Levon was not yet gone, but neither was he fully among the living. As we understood from his family, he was hovering at the doorway between this world and the next ... still taking the air of mortals in shallow and halting breaths, but with his eyes rolled back against the drawn curtain of his times. And we hovered with him.

Yet already in that moment, for many of us sadly absorbing the falling shoe of this news and preparing for the other to drop, he had assumed the flickering posture of memory; of those who had danced alive in our high beams, throwing shadows that moved like ancient black rivers; of those who have pointed the way forward from so far behind us that they shall forever, henceforth, stand ahead on the pathway like an omen of what is still to come; of those disappeared into omnipresence, like word into deed, fear into mercy and grace.

Levon entered my life when I was so young as to have had no notion that my gate needed a guard; thus, he waltzed right in while I was completely vulnerable to his raucous and ranging alchemy, and he changed me. Like children pulled into ministerial service when still in single digits, I looked unquestioningly upon Levon Helm as my church elder ... a deacon who spoke our gospel; who swung- and sung-out time in glorious illumination of its wild and elastic poetry.

In the same way that his great friend and sometimes-boss Bob Dylan connected the dots between Jimmy Reed, Arthur Rimbaud and Muhammad Ali, so Levon drew the second line that had Howlin’ Wolf, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Marvin Gaye and Hank Williams all dancing out in front of the same New Orleans funeral parade. (They all walked liked Bo Diddley and didn’t need no crutch.) He brought soul and an open heart to the darkest corners of rock music -- in a troubled era he helped shape and define -- and a rural humility to the grandest stages.

As I awaited word of the inevitable -- while we all waited -- I found there was nothing I could do but listen. And when I did, I was moved; was moving ... leaning, as implied, from past tense into present action; loosing my mind to what my body already knew, to the instinctive sway of my knees and shoulders in the face of unease; and I was reminded how much of our true intelligence resides in our physical frames’ southern hemisphere.

Yes, all I could do was listen and move, and it is what we will all do today. But then, that is all Levon Helm ever asked of any of us.

-- Joe Henry

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Photo: The five original members of the Band (left to right): Richard Manuel, Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Levon Helm and Garth Hudson, in the 1978 concert documentary "The Last Waltz," directed by Martin Scorsese. Credit: United Artists

Levon Helm, singer and drummer for the Band, dies at 71

This post has been updated. See bottom for details.

Levon Helm, the widely respected and influential singer and drummer with the Band, whose Arkansas drawl colored the group's signature hits, including "Up on Cripple Creek" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," died Thursday in New York of throat cancer. He was 71.

One of three lead singers of the group that first gained fame backing Bob Dylan when he "went electric" in 1965, Helm and the Band largely created the template for a genre now labeled "Americana music" for its blend of rock, country, folk, blues and gospel strains.

“Levon is one of the most extraordinary, talented people I’ve ever known and very much like an older brother to me," the Band's guitarist Robbie Robertson said in a statement. "I am so grateful I got to see him one last time and will miss him and love him forever.”

PHOTOS: Levon Helm

Helm had been diagnosed in 1998 with throat cancer, which threatened to end his singing career; he declined a recommended laryngectomy, opting for radiation treatment instead. He died at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

Over a matter of several years, he regained the use of his voice, enjoying a latter-day career resurgence that yielded three Grammy Awards for his post-illness recordings “Dirt Farmer,” “Electric Dirt” and “Ramble at the Ryman.”

“The Band, more than any other group, put rock and roll back in touch with its roots,” reads the group’s entry at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which inducted the Band in 1994. “With their ageless songs and solid grasp of musical idioms, the Band reached across the decades, making connections for a generation that was, as an era of violent cultural schisms wound down, in desperate search of them. They projected a sense of community in the turbulent late-'60s and early-'70s -- a time when the fabric of community in the United States was fraying.”

[Update at 3:32 p.m.: Garth Hudson, Helm's fellow member of the Band, posted the following message today on his Facebook page: "I am terribly sad. Thank you for 50 years of friendship and music. Memories that live on with us. No more sorrows, no more troubles, no more pain. He went peacefully to that beautiful marvelous wonderful place. He was Buddy Rich's favorite rock drummer...and my friend. Levon, I'm proud of you." --Garth]

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--Randy Lewis

Photo: Levon Helm at the drums in 1974 at the Forum in Inglewood on the Band's tour with Bob Dylan. Credit: Los Angeles Times.

Men at Work's Greg Ham found dead

Multi-instrumentalist Greg Ham, known best for his work in Australian pop band Men at Work, has been found dead in his home near Melbourne, according to numerous reports out of Australia. Ham's body was found by two friends who grew concerned after not hearing from the artist for a week, according to The Australian.

Ham was believed to be 58, and was with Men at Work throughout the '80s, when the band had international success with singles such as "Who Can It Be Now?" and "Down Under." Ham played the well-known flute riff on "Down Under," which reached No. 1 on the U.S. pop charts in 1982. The song is found on the chart-topping Columbia album "Business as Usual." 

Yet while "Down Under" is perhaps the band's most iconic song, in recent years it was in the headlines for plagiarism. In 2011, the band lost a court bid to prove that it did not lift the flute line from an Australian children's song, "Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree."

PHOTOS: Notable deaths of 2012

Ham left a distinctive mark on Men at Work's other major hit, as he contributed the sax solo to "Who Can It Be Now?" Numerous press outlets have quoted a statement from Men at Work frontman Colin Hay, in which he praised the "Who Can It Be Now?" solo as a perfect rehearsal take. 

Dick Clark remembered: He made kids, their music 'stars of the show'

With news of Dick Clark’s death Wednesday came reaction from the music and television world and points in between.

Starting in Philadelphia, where Clark got his start with “American Bandstand” on local television, R&B songwriters and producers Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff paid tribute.  

"As fellow Philadelphians, we have admired Dick Clark and the 'American Bandstand' brand for many years, as it promoted Philadelphia music around the nation," the professional collaborators said in a statement. "Dick Clark was one of our inspirations for creating the ‘Sound of Philadelphia’ music brand. More importantly, we thank him for being one of the pioneers in promoting the Philly dance and music scene for the nation and world to enjoy. We send our sincere and deepest condolences to Dick Clark's family.”

PHOTOS: Stars react to the death of Dick Clark

Another songwriter and music producer, Mike Curb, weighed in Wednesday. “I had the opportunity to work with Dick Clark for 50 years, beginning when I wrote the theme for 'American Bandstand.' He has clearly been the most important figure during my lifetime in the industry.”

John Oates of the pop duo Hall and Oates reminisced: “Dick Clark was so much more than the host of a teenage TV dance show. Dick's understated yet omnipresent personality created a new media format.  With an understated on air presence, he made the kids and their music the stars of the show.  His genius was in his ability to use the power of television to help define how American teenagers saw themselves. From its humble beginnings on a local Philadelphia television network, to its eventual national network syndication, Dick Clark's ‘American Bandstand’ spread the gospel of American pop music and teenage style that transcended the regional boundaries of our country and united a youth culture that eventually spread its message throughout the entire world. With his passing, Dick Clark deserves to take his place at the top in the pantheon of popular culture icons.”

Clark was inducted into the Cleveland-based Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a non-performer in 1993. “The way Dick Clark made it safe for rock ‘n’ roll, especially the way he brought it to teenagers and their parents through TV was crucial in spreading the word,” said Lauren Onkey, vice president of education and public programs at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “It’s also a great opportunity to remember how important dance is in the history of R&R. It’s ironic how we’ve lost Dick Clark and ['Soul Train' creator and host] Don Cornelius so close together. They were both up to something similar: They created a space for bands and their fans to shine, and you saw that interaction.”

PHOTOS: Dick Clark | 1929-2012

Mark Shapiro, chief executive of Dick Clark Productions, said in a statement: “Dick Clark was an American institution.  He was able to replicate the magic he brought to ‘American Bandstand,’ not once but several times, through the Golden Globes, 'New Year's Rockin’ Eve' and thousands of hours of programming in almost every genre imaginable.  He was the first of his kind -- a pioneer, entrepreneur and creative visionary who bridged and cultivated the music scene with traditional show business. Dick Clark entertained and touched the lives of several generations.  He is truly irreplaceable and will be greatly missed by the employees of our company and millions of fans worldwide.”

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-- Claire Noland

Photo: Dick Clark sits with the audience while introducing acts on "American Bandstand" in 1981.  Credit: Los Angeles Times.

Dick Clark: An indelible impact on American pop music

“There will only be a finite amount of time that they'll let me stand in front of a camera and behind a microphone, so I better start building something upon which I can fall back,” legendary TV producer and host Dick Clark told The Times back in 2001.

As the music and TV industry mourns the passing of "America's oldest living teenager," who died Wednesday of a heart attack at age 82, we remember the indelible mark Clark left on pop music.

And despite what he might have thought back in 2001, the world wanted him to stay in front of that camera, a trusted voice introducing the latest chart forces with a permanently genial smile.

PHOTOS: Stars react to the death of Dick Clark

Long before Carson Daly helped shape the Top 40 musical tastes of Gen-Y teens on MTV's "Total Request Live," or before Ryan Seacrest began a yearly quest to find America’s next big pop star, there was Clark – front and center on “American Bandstand,” a show he hosted and produced for more than three decades.

Slash remembers amplifier king Jim Marshall

It’s hard to imagine Slash and so many other hard-rock and heavy-metal guitarists unleashing great torrents of noise if Jim Marshall hadn’t come along with his iconic amplifiers in the 1960s, allowing rock music to hit new sonic highs.

"I consider myself very fortunate to have known the late Jim Marshall. He was such a fantastic individual,” Slash said in a statement issued Friday following news that Marshall died in a hospice in England at age 88. “Not only did he create the loudest, most effective, brilliant-sounding rock ‘n’ roll amplifier ever designed, but he was a caring, hardworking family man who remained true to his integrity to the very end. His work ethic was unequaled and his passion unrivaled."

Here’s the rest of what Slash had to say about Marshall:

“He took great care of me personally, as one of his loyal fans and Marshall Amp enthusiasts, ever since we first met in the early '90s.

“At that time, he did the unprecedented: He had the first-ever Artist Model Marshall series designed for me when my Marshall amps were destroyed in a Guns N’ Roses concert riot in St. Louis in 1991. We had been friends ever since.

“Jim cared for all his customers like they were his family. He would do whatever it took to make sure an artist was completely satisfied and he made sure his staff did likewise. It was very important to him that Marshall quality and customer care was paramount.

“Jim's passing marks the end of a very loud and colorful era. From Pete Townshend to Kerry King, Marshall Amplifiers have been behind every great Rock & Roll guitarist since the beginning. Marshall Amplification is one of the most enduring, iconic brands of contemporary music history.

“This industry will likely never see the likes of Jim again. But his legacy will live on forever."

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-- Randy Lewis

Photo of Slash playing through his Marshall amplifier stack in Hong Kong in 2011. Credit: Ed Jones / AFP / Getty Images.