The news came Wednesday night via e-mail: Dan Tulk had been killed in a car accident. It’s understandable if his name doesn’t ring a bell. Local arts coverage tends to shine brightest on a select few, and Tulk was an emerging artist, just stepping into the faint edge of the [...]

Back in June, Arts Desk reported that D.C. soul singer Reese Palmer, who founded the Marquees singing group in 1957 along with Marvin Gaye and two others, had bladder and prostate cancer and was in Southern Maryland Hospital. A benefit concert was held for him at the time at the Eclipse featuring D.C. R&B old-timers [...]

Early Sunday morning, Washington D.C. lost one of go-go’s pioneering musicians, Anthony “Little Benny” Harley, who at age 46, according to published sources, died in his sleep, after having performed with Chuck Brown the night before at the Capitol Heights Ballroom in Capitol Heights, MD on a bill with EU, Bela Dona, and Da Mixx [...]

Good morning, people! Lotsa death this week!
First: Howard Zinn, influential leftist historian, and Louis Auchincloss, literary chronicler of the Upper East Side elite, died. Yes, I almost forgot, too! Because J.D. Salinger, the highest common divisor of American letters, is dead. My colleague Ted Scheinman collected some of the Web's more interesting tributes. One that he mentioned [...]

Alan Carton, the 23-year-old wunderkind behind the Web site Did It Leak?, is dead of complications from cancer. For the last two years and under the cover of anonymity, Carton worked himself into the go-to source for leaked albums. Fresh, hot, indie, major label, hip-hop, noise-rock, whatever—Carton had a nose for finding torrents before anyone [...]

UPDATE: In the Red Records owner Larry Hardy said Reatard was found this morning by his roommate, Jeffrey Novak of the band Cheap Time, who immediately called paramedics. Hardy said Reatard was pronounced dead on the scene.
In the Red released Reatard's 2006 album Blood Visions and a pair of singles compilations. "I'm in shock. He just [...]

UPDATE – 7:42 p.m.: Chesnutt has died, the New York Times reports.
UPDATE – 11:38 a.m.: Reports of Chesnutt's death were false. He is in a coma. Original post below.
Singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt has died. Earlier today, Chesnutt slipped into a coma after an apparent suicide attempt. Chesnutt spent much of his life in a wheelchair following [...]

Philadelphia-based acoustic guitarist Jack Rose died Sunday morning of a heart attack. He was 38 years old.
Rose was a traditional musician with a flare for the experimental. A Virginia native, he got his start during the mid-'90s performing with the Richmond-based avant-folk group Pelt. A few years later, Rose went solo. Inspired by American primitive [...]

Reading Jonah Weiner's Creed encomium yesterday reminded me that when "Higher" hit the airwaves in 1999 as the first single from Creed's Human Clay, I knew on first listen that I had to learn that song.

On Thursday August 6, longtime D.C. soul singer Eddie Daye passed away at age 78.  Back in 2002, I wrote a feature  piece on him for the Washington City Paper.  I had  heard that he had been ill recently and was in the hospital but  have not yet been able to get any other specifics on [...]