
When Riddle and Ronstadt Made Beautiful Music Together
“Who is Linda Ronstadt?” That was the question Grammy/Oscar/Emmy winning arranger Nelson Riddle asked when he hung up the phone after a conversation with Peter Asher, Ronstadt’s manager. It was May of 1982 and Riddle was no longer at the top of his game: his best years, those times when he and Frank Sinatra were recording […]
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The Story Nora Ephron Refused to Tell
Before her death, filmmaker Nora Ephron had one last important story to tell. But, quite intentionally, she elected not to tell it. Ephron, who passed away on June 26, 2012, at the age of 71, had been living with a death sentence diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia for more than six years. Outside her immediate family […]
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Rituals Impact Grief Recovery after the Loss of a Loved One
“Dying, a man may be loved, hated, mourned, missed; but once dead, he becomes the chief ornament of a complicated and formal social celebration.” These words from author John Steinbeck are cynical, but revelatory: across cultures, in many different ways, we embrace rituals at the time of death. And, we bestow them freely upon the deceased, whatever […]
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Best Recordings by the First Lady of Song, Ella Fitzgerald
The inscription on Ella Fitzgerald’s grave marker at the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Los Angeles is unambiguous. It reads: “The First Lady of Song.” If anything, this might be an understatement. “She’s one of the purest examples of God in art,” Hamilton star Leslie Odom, Jr. proclaimed. Bing Crosby said, “Man, woman or child, […]
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Herb Adderley’s Devotion to Lombardi, Green Bay and the Game
When Herb Adderley passed away on October 30 at the age of 81, the Green Bay Packer glory teams of the 1960’s lost another memorable link. Of the twenty-two Packer players who started Super Bowl I in January 1967, only three players — linebacker Dave Robinson, safety Tom Brown and center Bill Curry — are […]
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