Oh no, another passing to report this week. And like Billy Strange, another musician who we've all heard many, many times and had mostly remained anonymous unless you really dug into liner notes and all that stuff.
Some of my favorite work from him...The Partridge Family albums. He and Larry Knechtel did some terrific keyboard work for those soundtracks. Ironically, Billy Strange and Mike both did some arranging for the first Partridge album.
His credits are found here:
http://www.mikemelvoin.com/history.htmInteresting notes: His daughter Wendy was one half of "Wendy And Lisa", the duo who played with Prince in The Revolution. Her twin sister, songwriter/musician Susannah was engaged to Prince, also worked with him in the 80's, and was the inspiration for the song "Nothing Compares 2 U". His son Jonathan was a keyboard player who died of an overdose in the presence of Smashing Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlain in a hotel room as he was on tour backing the Pumpkins.
Another sad loss in the world of music. It's impossible to calculate how many millions of listeners have enjoyed his work and have no idea who the musician was.