Bill Pitman, one of the members of the Wrecking Crew. He was 102.
In a career of nearly 40 years, Mr. Pitman played countless gigs for studios and record labels that dominated the pop charts but rarely credited the performers behind the stars. The Wrecking Crew did almost everything — television and film scores; pop, rock and jazz arrangements; even cartoon soundtracks. Whether recorded in a studio or on location, everything was performed with precision and pizazz.
“These were crack session players who moved effortlessly through many different styles: pop, jazz, rockabilly, but primarily the two-minute-thirty-second world of hit records that America listened to all through the sixties and seventies,” Allegro magazine reminisced in 2011. “If it was a hit and recorded in L.A., the Wrecking Crew cut the tracks.”
Jumping from studio to studio — often playing four or five sessions a day — members of the crew accompanied the Beach Boys, Sonny and Cher, the Monkees, the Mamas and the Papas, Simon and Garfunkel, Ricky Nelson, Jan and Dean, Johnny Rivers, the Byrds, Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett, the Everly Brothers, Peggy Lee and scads more — nearly every prominent performer of the era.
There’s an interesting mixture of obit and feature story in the NYT about Mario Fiorentini, who died at 103.
Mr. Fiorentini, whose father was Jewish, was one of the last survivors from the resistance groups who fought the German forces that had taken control of northern and central Italy in 1943. About 2,000 partisans who fought in the war are still alive, said Fabrizio De Sanctis, the president of a local branch of A.N.P.I., “but the pandemic and the heat this summer have been dealing harsh blows,” he added.
On Wednesday evening, two partisans and old friends of Mr. Fiorentini — Gastone Malaguti and Iole Mancini — paid their respects and for several minutes stood silent guard next to his coffin.
According to the NYT, he was the most decorated member of the resistance. He was also a passionate mathematician.
(Alternative link for those who might want one.)
Kamoya Kimeu. He was a Kenyan fossil hunter who worked closely with the Leakeys.
Most paleontologists go years between uncovering hominid fossils, and the lucky ones might find 10 in a career. Mr. Kamoya, as he was called, who had just six years of primary school education in Kenya, claimed at least 50 over his half-century in the field.
Among them were several groundbreaking specimens, like a 130,000-year-old Homo sapiens skull, which he found in 1968 in Ethiopia’s Omo Valley. The discovery pushed back paleontologists’ estimate for the emergence of human beings by some 70,000 years.