Lee Hazelwood (1929-2007)

Lee Hazelwood was everything a wilfully unsuccessful rock'n'roll star should be: cool, louche, edgy, odd, unique. Everything he did was different, creating a style and an image that shouldn't have worked but always did. His deep baritone intoning camp voiceovers or interplaying with sexy leading ladies gave an underplayed aura and sardonic twist to his music. All of his records are slightly ridiculous, overdone melodramas telling the stories of losers and wasters and failed romances. But in camping up the absurd quality of life, his music becomes deeply moving. It's sentimental and sympathetic at the same time, and truly wonderful.
Trouble was Lee Hazelwood's first record, a weird story about Trouble and its hapless inhabitants. Each small song is introduced by Lee's voiced musings on life, its characters, and its setbacks. It set the tone for the rest of his career: bizarre, individual, sentimental, moving, and utterly cool.
This record may not be to everyone's tastes, but I love it. A series of country covers, Lee and Ann Margret, feisty sexy Swede, duet, one of many great partnerships that Lee had in his career. Like many of his records, the songs tell the stories of failed relationships and the desperate ties that bring people together.
This is Lee Hazelwood's best record. He moved to Sweden in the 60s; while there he made a documentary, which I've never seen but must be quite odd, for which this is the soundtrack. It's an odd collection of love songs and angry anti-Vietnam protest songs, climaxing in a dazzingly camp but beautiful version of a Swedish folk song, "Vem Kan Segla," "Who Can Sail Without the Wind?"

Yvonne de Carlo

When I was younger, I watched the Munsters and had a crush on Lily Munster. I thought it strange that I should fancy an ageing vampire, but looking back at pictures of the early Lily Munster, aka Yvonne de Carlo, aka Maria Montez, real name Peggy Middleton, it all made sense. She played the alluring vampish femme fatale, a gorgeous gothic beauty. She was in lots of bad movies which I've never seen before she shot to fame in the Munsters. Her life seems to have been a glorious exercise in gothic camp. For a proper obituary, go to the Guardian, which describes her transition from "vamp to vampire."

Arthur Lee (1945-2006)

In the summer of 2002, I was walking around Madrid where I then lived when I saw a poster pasted on a wall. In bright colours it announced that Arthur Lee + Love were playing. I didn't think it could be possible; Arthur Lee was still in prison and Love hadn't played together for thirty years. It was probably some dodgy tribute band. But it turned out that the Californian authorities had kindly released Lee from prison and that he was touring with a young LA band. I thought I'd go along, more to see one of my idols in the flesh than in the expectation of a decent gig. As the time neared for the concert, my excitement mounted - I was actually going to be in the same room as Arthur Lee. And probably few others would turn up, so I'd be close to him. I just hoped it wouldn't be too sad to see the great Arthur Lee broken by drugs, madness, and prison.
As it was, there were five or six hundred cool young Madridilenos there, as eager as I was to see Arthur Lee. And on he walked, in a pale green suit and trilby, a tall, impossibly cool black man dominating the stage. Any doubts about the gig soon disappeared. The band kicked into the thumping bass and drums of My Little Red Book, the great garage song of the 60s. Arthur Lee was back and he meant business. They went through the whole Love back catalogue, the crowd and Lee sharing the excitement and joy of a man who had rediscovered his sense of purpose. It was the greatest gig I've ever been to; some of the best pop music ever created played with urgency, conviction, and renewal.

Nothing has ever compared to Arthur Lee. As the lead singer and main songwriter of Love, he was responsible for music that, with historical hindsight, define the 1960s. Swirling psychedelia, dark edgy lyrics, sentimental idealism mixed with a druggy cynicism, their music captures the feeling of hope and fear that was evident, say, at the Stones' appearance at Altamont. Forever Changes is their defining moment, musically transcedent but lyrically fragmented and eerie, it sounds like nothing before it. But listen to any indie band gleefully playing a trumpet over glorious strings, and they'll have got it from Love. Love, though, weren't just a one album band; from My Little Red Book to Singing Cowboy, they created exciting and electryifying music.
After Forever Changes, Arthur Lee split Love up, and never recovered the musical inspiration behind their best moments. In the 1990s, he was sent to jail for 12 years under the three strikes and you're out rule, for waving around a shotgun he didn't have a licence for. But it seemed to focus his mind, and released after ive years he performed live again, including playing the whole of Forever Changes in sequence. It gave us all a chance to see him and revel in his unparallelled greatness.

Fred Trueman (1931-2006)

Now that Fred Trueman is dead, Geoff Boycott can reign alone as the Greatest Living Yorkshireman. For Fred Trueman was the only Yorkshireman more forthright, blunt, and no nonsense than Boycott. They both share typical Yorkshire characteristics: stubborn, arrogant, seeing everything in black and white. But Trueman's temperament seemed to match the way he played cricket. He was fast and fiery, inspiring fear in the opposition batsman. Everything looks slower in black and white, but Trueman was fast and, as he never tired of repeating, as fast as anyone since.
Before a day's play, he would walk into the opponent's dressing room and tell each batsman how he was going to get them out. And then do it. It was this attitude which instilled fear in the batsman as much as the frightening accuracy and speed of his bowling. The batsmen knew exactly what was going to happen to them, and were afraid.
His no nonsense attitude never did him any favours. After an explosive start to his career, he spent many years on the sidelines for saying just what he thought. A Yorkshireman doesn't suffer fools gladly; he's from God's County and, like a priest, is going to tell anyone what's right (him) and what's wrong (you). And that, as much as his wonderful cricket, is what made Fred Trueman great. They don't make cricketers like him - arrogant, individual, fearsome - any more, as Trueman himself would agree.

Gene Pitney (1941-2006)

The shrill, passionate voice spoke of heartbreak and sadness, the well-dressed troubador sharing his pain for our entertainment. It seemed to come out from not just his soul, but from somewhere piercingly ethereal.
He had the singing style of the 50s mixed with a cool 60s sensibility, commanding the stage like a showman combined with a Motown like sound. Despite being very much of his time, his popularity never waned. He had a No.1 hit in the 80s with Marc Almond, the gay tattooed singer with a penchant for big 60s ballads. And when he died, he was in the middle of another sellout British tour.
But, although he didn't write many of his own hits, he was also a songwriter for well-known singers such as Roy Orbison and Ricky Nelson, for whom he wrote "Hello Mary Lou". These songwriting hits came before his own success; his was a voice which couldn't be unleashed all at once.
Gene Pitney could have carried on filling the stadiums, and belting out the hits, the small man singing from the depths of his heart.

George Best (1946-2005)

Best spent his adult life drinking his way to an early death. For thirty years, he was viewed by the public as an alcoholic womanizer, stumbling from embarrassment to shame, drunk, messy and swearing on Wogan, being asked by room service where it all went wrong as he lay hungover next to a Miss World. He at once cringed in shame at, yet revelled in, his alcoholism, just as the public did too.

But mainly he was remembered for his footballing career, in which he won league and European Cup medals, becoming a glamorous symbol of the affection in which Manchester United were then held after the Munich Air Disaster. But he went beyond one football club: he was the ultimate new footballer - affluent, famous, iconic, adored. And he also went beyond football itself: he was as much a symbol of Britain's swinging Sixties as the Beatles or Twiggy. The Sixties were the decade in which the working class became more famous, more notorious, more talked about than the upper classes - and George Best, the shy boy from Belfast, was one of the most famous, notorious, talked about men in the world.
But it all came down to the football: he was the brightest, the quickest, the silkiest of footballers, running around bewildered defenders with grace, speed and balance. He barely rocked when less couth defenders tried to cut him in half, always in control of his body and the ball. His football was as sexy as he was.

Ronnie Barker (1929-2005)

Ronnie Barker was legendary in British television for many reasons, but foremost among his achievements was Porridge, the 1970s comedy. Alongside Richard Beckinsale, Porridge presented a bleak, warm, humorous, moving portrait of prison life. Barker portrayed a man leading an aimless life, who only felt secure inside prison walls, where his position was strong, where he could rebel against the system, where he could win small yet significant victories.

Barker became known in the 1960s in The Frost Report, where he appeared alongside David Frost, members of the Monty Python team and Ronnie Corbett. He and Corbett made a natural duo, with their contrasting sizes and mannerisms. From the early 70s, The Two Ronnies ran and ran. Although often sexist and now dated, the programme's best sketches relied on intricate puns, often written by Barker under various pseudonyms.
Porridge only ran for a few episodes. Written by Clement and la Frenais (The Likely Lads and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet), and with a fine all-round cast, it was Barker's finest hour. It has been said that Barker was a finer actor than comedian, and the character of Norman Stanley Fletcher showcased his abilities as a character actor. The cynical yet warm-hearted con, the selfish but keenly observant insider, playing off the naive Godber (Beckinsale), Barker presented one of the best-loved characters in British television comedy.
Barker's other famous role was in Open All Hours, as equally successful but not as great an achievement as Porridge, in which Barker played the stuttering, bigoted, repressed shopkeeper. He retired in 1988, mainly for health reasons after the failure of Clarence, his last sitcom, ensuring his reputation did not fade. His brief return to television were in straight roles, once again highlighting his ability as a character actor.