Free Republic

Copenhagen, Denmark — Guitar player Link Wray, who invented the power chord, the major modus operandi of modern rock guitarists, has died. He was 76. A native of Dunn, North Carolina, Wray's style is considered the blueprint for heavy metal and punk music. Wray's is best known for his 1958 instrumental Rumble, 1959's Rawhide and 1963's Jack the Ripper. His music has appeared in movies like Pulp Fiction, Independence Day and Desperado. His style is said to have inspired many other rock musicians, including Pete Townsend of the Who. David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Steve Van Zandt and Bruce Springsteen have...

'Gatemouth' Brown, legendary singer and guitarist, dies Musician fled to Orange before Hurricane Katrina wiped out his Slidell, La., home BATON ROUGE, LA. - Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown , the singer and guitarist who built a 50-year career playing blues, country, jazz and Cajun music, died Saturday in his hometown of Orange, where he had gone to escape Hurricane Katrina. He was 81. Brown had been battling lung cancer and heart disease, said Rick Cady , his booking agent. Cady said the musician was with his family at his brother's house when he died. Brown's home in Slidell, La., a bedroom...

RALEIGH, N.C. - Robert A. Moog, whose self-named synthesizers turned electric currents into sound and opened the musical wave that became electronica, has died. He was 71. Moog was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, detected in April. He died Sunday at his home in Asheville, according to his company's Web site. A childhood interest in the theremin, one of the first electronic musical instruments, would lead Moog to a create a career and business that tied the name Moog as tightly to synthesizers as the name Les Paul is to electric guitars. As a Ph.D student in engineering physics...

Hasil Adkins. That's pronounced "hassle." Never has a name been more apropos - and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Adkins, who died April 26, was his own beast, musically and socially. Adkins was one of rock 'n' roll's great characters, the cultural missing link between Ernest T. Bass and Jerry Lee Lewis, replete with a downwind slaughterhouse whiff of Hank Williams and Sid Vicious. He was a brawling boozehound and a law-breaking hellion who lived in rural West Virginia, a musical menace from the cinematic fringes of Deliverance. He was also the unwitting archetype of the doublewide, downwardly mobile...

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Danny Sugerman, longtime manager of the Doors and the principal caretaker of the Los Angeles band's legend, died Wednesday in West Hollywood after a long battle with cancer. He was 50. Sugerman became involved with the Doors as a teenage fan during the group's heyday in the late '60s. He worked as a go-fer for the band, and idolized flamboyant lead singer Jim Morrison. After Morrison's death in Paris in 1971, he became increasingly involved with the surviving members' career and eventually served as their manager. At his death, he was partnered with co-manager Jeff...

One of the seminal American comic artists. He also did training guides for the U.S. Army during WW2.