Brando's Troubled Firstborn Dies

Eugene Polley created the Flash-Matic for Zenith in the 1950s

(AP) - Couch potatoes everywhere can pause and thank Eugene Polley for hours of feet-up channel surfing. His invention, the first wireless TV remote, began as a luxury, but with the introduction of hundreds of channels and viewing technologies it has become a necessity. Polley died of natural causes at a suburban Chicago hospital over the weekend. The former Zenith engineer was 96. More»

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau excelled at Schubert lieder

(NEWSER) - Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, perhaps the greatest singer of art songs in the 20^th century, died yesterday at home in Bavaria, the New York Times reports. He was 86. The German son of a classical scholar and a schoolteacher, Fischer-Dieskau (pronounced FEE-sher DEES-cow) studied voice in Berlin and got two years of unexpected practice singing for fellow POWs during World War II. Returning to Germany at age 22, he quickly became a singing sensation. "I passed my last exam in the concert hall," he said. More»

DC's funk pioneer is gone

(NEWSER) - Chuck Brown, who created the "go-go" genre of funk in DC in the 1970s and remained a mainstay of black Washington's culture ever since, has died at age 75, reports the Washington Post . A snippet from the paper's obituary, by Chris Richards:

• "Like a DJ blending records, Mr. Brown used nonstop percussion to stitch songs together and keep the crowd on the dance floor, resulting in marathon performances that went deep into the night. Mr. Brown said the style got its name because 'the music just goes and goes.'" Full piece here .

He was a giant among Latin American writers

(AP) - Author Carlos Fuentes, who played a dominant role in Latin America's novel-writing boom by delving into the failed ideals of the Mexican revolution, died today in a Mexico City hospital at age 83. Mexico's National Council for Culture for the Arts confirmed the death of Mexico's most celebrated novelist. The cause was not immediately known. His generation of writers, including Colombia's Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Peru's Mario Vargas Llosa, drew global readership and attention to Latin American culture during a period when strongmen ruled much of the region. More»

Donald 'Duck' Dunn was in Rock Hall of Fame

(AP) - Bass player and songwriter Donald "Duck" Dunn, a member of the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame band Booker T. and the MGs and the Blues Brothers band, has died in Tokyo. He was 70. Dunn was in Tokyo for a series of shows. News of his death was posted on the Facebook site of his friend and fellow musician Steve Cropper, who was on the same tour. Cropper said Dunn died in his sleep. More»