Obituaries

Davy Jones, the devil-may-care Monkee, died today of a massive heart attack in his Florida home. He was 66.

Riding the wave of the Beatles, the Monkees were born in 1966. Jones, a Brit, was placed in the Paul McCartney role. The Monkees were the creation of record producers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider. With a stable of songwriters like Neil Diamond, the Monkees became an overnight sensation with an NBC sitcom and their likeness everywhere else.

Jones sang lead on several chart-topping hits including I’m a Believer and Daydream Believer.

WCBS-FM morning man Dan Taylor was saddened to learn of Jones’ passing.

“[He was] always a great performer. I’ve interviewed him several times, and I always enjoyed his stories.” Taylor tells FishbowlNY. “Especially how he had a school chum named Daniel Taylor.”

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As family and friends said a final farewell to Whitney Houston last weekend, millions of fans watched the event.

Houston was eulogized and praised during a four-hour service at her childhood church in Newark, New Jersey.

WABC/Channel 7 and WNBC/Channel 4 were the only broadcast stations covering the funeral. Other outlets, including

WCBS/Channel 2, offered the complete proceedings on their website. At its height of online coverage, according to its site, Channel 2 had more than 180,000 people watching the live video.

As for the traditional viewing,  Channel 7 registered an estimated 560,000 viewers. At the peak of the coverage, in the final 15 minutes, WABC notched 750,000.

WNBC averaged 235,000 mourners for their many hours on the air.

CNN also brought the Houston funeral to fans, with 374,000 people watching.

Houston, 48, died in her Beverly Hills hotel room February 11.

TVSpy: When audio drops out on Dwayne Johnson, a.k.a. The Rock promoting Wrestlemedia, it was the local anchor to the rescue!

FishbowlLA: A Pulitizer Prize winning New York Times reporter dies in Syria. Anthony Shadid was just 43 years old.

TVNewser: The Jeremy Lin experience has spilled onto MSNBC. The cable network has unveiled a promo characterizing the exploits of the Knicks’ new point guard.

Whether it was smacking a clutch hit down the line, throwing out a runner at second base, or simply that endearing smile, Gary Carter was a gift to baseball fans for more than two decades. But to New York Mets fans, his legendary career took on a heroic note. Carter died yesterday after a long battle with brain cancer. He was 57.

“I choose to celebrate a life that touched and brightened so many other lives through his works both on and off the field,” Longtime WABC sports anchor Scott Clark tells FishbowlNY. “Baseball players respected and admired his skills and his grit. Members of the media craved for more like him, always available, win or lose.”

A blockbuster trade after the 1984 season sent Carter to Shea Stadium, and the New York media. Less than two years later, Carter helped the Mets win one of the “amazing” comebacks in World Series history.

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At the height of Disco in the late 1970s, WKTU was a top radio station in New York. It’s Disco 92 had famed personalities like Al Bandiero and “Fast” Freddie Colon.

Another person synonymous with Disco 92 is Carlos DeJesus. 

“I worked with him for many years at KTU,” WCBS-FM DJ Joe Causi tells FishbowlNY. “[A] good guy and a good friend. Besides KTU, I often co-hosted New York Hot Tracks with him.”

Tony Santiago is the coordinator of the New York Dance Coalition.

“The one thing about Carlos is he made you feel like part of the whole era,” Santiago tells FishbowlNY. ”He made you feel like you were part of the experience.”  

Santiago says his persona on radio and TV was easy-going and pleasant.  

DeJesus was the first host of New York Hot Tracks, an early music video showcase on WABC/Channel 7, from 1983 to 1986.

It’s a tragedy that resonates with fans around the world. Whitney Houston, one of the great voices of her generation, died suddenly Saturday night. She was 48. At the time of this writing, an autopsy was scheduled to be performed tomorrow.

Houston rocketed to superstardom in 1985 with her self-titled Whitney Houston. She remains the only artist to chart seven consecutive number ones on the Billboard Hot 100.

Bob Slade, the KISS FM news director and longtime music host, has early memories of the songstress.  He interviewed Houston at the radio station in the spring of 1985.

“Her debut album had just dropped,” Slade recalls. “She was very shy and reserved… A year and a half later I met the ‘real’ Whitney. [It was] night and day, full of life, funny, and was having a ball.”

Life, though, was not always a ball for the 80s iconic singer. In 1992, after a three-year courtship, Houston married singer Bobby Brown, and a downward spiral was underway.

Houston’s perfect image was tarnished by the end of the 1990s.  She admitted to drug abuse and her behavior was, at times, erratic.

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Songstress Etta James, wh0 became known for her signature ballad At Last, died this morning after a long battle with leukemia. She was 73.

Paul Cavalconte, a longtime New York air personality, including at the defunct Smooth Jazz station WQCD, has fond memories of the legendary artist.

“What strikes me is how Etta had this incredibly rich and varied career, with deep R&B roots, but she is best known for a record that totally misrepresents her–as with Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World,”  Cavalconte, currently heard on FM News WEMP, tells FishbowlNY. “That said, both records are pop masterpieces, and her At Last has gained this other life through use in movies, commercials and such.”

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Courtesy: VuoloVideo.com

Veteran radio host Lynn Samuels has died. Former 77 WABC colleague and friend, Mark Simone confirms to FishbowlNY that Samuels, uncharacteristically, missed her weekend Sirius XM show. Simone says the NYPD was called to her Manhattan home Saturday where Samuels’ body was discovered. She was 69.

While no cause of death has been determined, Simone points out that she was a heavy smoker.

At the height of her WABC popularity, Simone recalls, Samuels shared a desk with Rush Limbaugh. She was his lead-in for a time from 10 a.m. to noon.

But before she blossomed on the radio, Simone got to know the opinionated Samuels in the early 1980s–and actually helped her forge a new career path.

“She used to sell the New York Post on the corner of 57th [Street] and Fifth [Avenue],” Simone tells FishbowlNY. “I would tape the man on the street interview there a few times a week. She had such a distinct voice.”

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Tom Wicker, who enjoyed a four-decade association with The New York Times, died Friday of an apparent heart attack. He was 85.

Wicker, who joined The New York Times in 1960 as a political correspondent in the Washington bureau, had a career turn three years later as a result of a tragic moment.

He was the only Times reporter to accompany President Kennedy on his fateful trip to Dallas November 22, 1963.

Gay Talese  who penned the major history of The New York Times, described Wicker’s coverage: “It was a remarkable achievement in reporting and writing, in collecting facts out of confusion, in restructuring the most deranged day in his life, the despair and bitterness and disbelief, and then getting on a telephone to New York and dictating the story in a voice that only rarely cracked with emotion.”

The Associated Press reports Wicker was in the first press bus after the Kennedy motorcade when the assassination occurred. In his memoir years later, Wicker recounted the day.

“The shots ringing out in Dealey Plaza marked the beginning of the end of innocence.”  

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Start of "Trilogy of the Century," Frazier (left) knocks down Ali in 1971/boxingmemories.com

He may not have been “The Greatest,” but Joe Frazier was recognized as a great fighter in his own right. He famously took Muhammed Ali to the limit in three epic battles.

Frazier died last night following a short battle with liver cancer. He was 67.

“He wasn’t so much a boxer as he was a fighter,” Former Yankees broadcaster Charley Steiner tells FishbowlNY. “A tough S.O.B. who left it all in the ring every time he fought.”

In 1971, Frazier outslugged his nemesis in a 15-round decision, a fight at Madison Square Garden aptly hyped as the “Fight of the Century.”

“Smokin’ Joe” and Ali would battle in two more classic bouts, concluding in 1975 with The Thrilla in Manila.

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