Bert Jansch is dead at 67 years of age. The man is legend, one of the founding members of the super-folk-group Pentangle.

Six-and-a-half years ago I posted the following snippet of Bert Jansch, guitar master and great influence on guitar masters that I love, e.g. Johnny Marr and Bernard Butler:

[audio:https://niklasblog.com/wp-content/2005-03-24-jansch.mp3]

That's "Chambertin“, off his “L.A. Turnaround“ album from 1974.

Also, Sylvia Robinson (née Vanderpool) has died also, at 75 years of age. She founded Sugar Hill Records, the first hip-hop music label. Yet notably, I think the second-biggest thing she's been involved in is actually being

A little story on "Rapper's Delight", the first hip-hop single to make it big in the non-hip-hop world, as told by Charlie Chase:

This is how it happened. Hank was working in a pizzeria in New Jersey, flipping pizza. And he's playing Cas' tape, right? Sylvia Robinson walks in, the president of Sugar Hill. She's listening to this, it's all new to her. Mind you, there were never any rap records. She says, “Hey, man, who's this?“ He says, “I manage this guy. He's a rapper.“ She says, “Can you do this? Would you do this on a record for me?“ And he said, “Yeah, sure. No problem.“ And she says, “Okay, fine.“ So he calls Cas up and says, “Cas, can I use your rhymes on a record? Some lady wants to make a record.“ You see what happened? Cas didn't have foresight. He couldn't see down the road. He never imagined in a million years what was going to come out of that. He didn't know, so he said, “Sure, fine, go ahead.“ With no papers, no nothing. And it went double platinum! Double platinum! “Rapper's Delight.“ A single. A double platinum single, which is a hard thing to do.