http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=8&u=/ap/20030704/ap_on_en_mu/obit_white
Sigh.
Plays MP3 of “You’re My First, My Last, My Everything”
Damn, Barry. You’ll be missed.
That news makes me so sad.
He had the most awesome vocal talent - which many folks tried to imitate in the shower each morning, I’m sure.
May he rest in peace.
When he helped save the snakes in Springfield on Whacking Day … that was the greatest.
Good Lord!
What is with all of the people dying recently?!
He was truly one of my favorite performers. He will be missed in the Maven household.
He was, hell, still is and will always be, the epitome of cool R & B.
Aw damn. I really liked his voice when I was younger. Still do. I read an interview of his once and he seemed like a rather kind person who was brought up well.
Odd. I would have pegged him as a basso profundo…
Always got him confused with Isaac Hayes . . . Both terrific singers.
Well, all I have to say is, I know who the Simpson’s season premiere next fall will be dedicated to…
And yeah, they really ARE dropping like flies lately. MUCH more than average, and some BIG names, too. (Hepburn, Peck, Brinkley…and those are just the ones I remember.) Very bizarre.
Eh, not so bizarre . . . Back in the awful Summer of '73 we lost Betty Grable, Veronica Lake, Joe E. Brown, Robert Ryan, Lon Chaney Jr., Bruce Lee, Ernest Truex, Fay Holden, Jack Hawkins, within weeks of one another.
plays an MP3 of “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love Babe”
Whenever somebody would put on a record of his, or a tape of his stuff, it was always ‘make-out time’ during the jr high or high school parties I attended growing up.
Barry, Texas was proud to call you one of it’s own.
IDBB
I guess that we should all enjoy some hot sex as a memorial…
LOL.
Well, vl_mungo, in THAT case… (Plays MP3 playlist of “Practice What You Preach”, “The Secret Garden” “It’s Ecstasy When You Lay Down Next To Me”, “Love’s Theme” with LUO, etc.)
Got to play “Missing You”, by Diana Ross, even though he’s not mentioned.
Sigh.
He was one of a kind. And I loved his voice. I’m going to miss him.
From This site
[ul]
[li]Buddy Hackett, comedian, died June 30 at the age of 79. [/li][li]Katharine Hepburn, actress, died June 29 at the age of 96. [/li][li]Strom Thurmond, ultra-conservative US politician, died June 26 at the age of 100. [/li][li]Leon Uris, author best known for novels such as Exodus and Trinity, died June 21 at the age of 78. [/li][li]Hume Cronyn, actor most recently known for Cocoon, died June 15 at the age of 91. [/li][li]Gregory Peck, movie star best known as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, died June 12 at the age of 87. [/li][li]David Brinkley, news anchorman, died June 11 at the age of 82.[/ul][/li]
I’m with KGS – June’s been a busy month, no doubt. Let’s hope July slacks off.
That’s not including Maurice Gibb, Nell Carter, Dr. Atkins, The Coors guy, Richard Crenna, Mr. Fred Rogers earlier this year…
Sad.
I can do a mean impression of his voice, but it won’t be fun anymore.
Certainly does seem to be a lot of celebrity deaths of late.
Man, this has been a horrible couple of months for the best of the best. And he was really young, too.
It’s a shame. A damn shame.
I guess this is a opportunity to tell a Barry White anecdote or two.
During his heyday in the 70’s, I was hired to write down his songs as lead sheets (musical shorthand, sort of) for copyright and other purposes. I was typically given a copy of the finished product just before commercial release. But on many songs, his voice was obscured with the lush background tracks, and crisp pronounciation wasn’t his trademark.
So I told the publisher that I needed to get a copy of his lyrics to ensure lead sheet accuracy. I was expecting him (or a secretary) to type them out, but instead Barry turned on a tiny tape recorder and put his record on the stereo. I could hear the song playing in the background, then he would “interpret” the lyrics by repeating them. Needless to say, his voice when speaking wasn’t much more intelligible than singing!
Although I could usually figure out the “Oh, baby, baby…” part. 
As a result of this experience, I changed my pricing schedule to charge more for lead sheets where I did not get typed lyrics in advance, since they were much harder to work with and the accuracy less certain.
Another Barry White titbit, on how he wrote songs, quite different from many songwriters – he would often noodle a tune fragment on the piano, Gene Page would expand & arrange it for an elaborate orchestra, they would record it, then it might sit in the can for years. But still no lyrics yet. Then Barry would pull these tracks out at random, play them, and if he got inspired to write lyrics or a spoken part over one, that became the song. Some never did inspire him, and they were sometimes used as instrumentals. I imagine there are hundreds of expensively-produced, incomplete tracks still in the vault, just waiting for a synthesized BW voice to be added.
Everyone dies. It’s a fact of life.
Your loved president will be die (in about 50 years)
Your famous sexually maturing twins will die (in about 64 years)
Your latin-american singer who’s dress sense is insane but who has the body (and face) to pull it off will die (in 68 years)
Your austrian film star with the long last name and the predictable catch-phrase will die (in about 30 years)
you will die (in about 55 years) if you are the ‘average doper’
Death is the one sure thing we can expect in life.