Dewey Martin, 68, the muscular, gregarious drummer and singer who helped found the pioneering country-rock band Buffalo Springfield with Neil Young and Stephen Stills, was found dead Sunday by a roommate in his Van Nuys, Calif., apartment, longtime friend Lisa Lenes said. She said Martin had health problems and that she believed that he died of natural causes.
Martin, Young, Stills, singer-songwriter-guitarist Richie Furay and bassist Bruce Palmer formed Buffalo Springfield in Los Angeles in 1966 and quickly became one of the hottest live acts on the West Coast, helped in part by the grinning, blond Martin.
Their self-titled debut album included the hit “For What It’s Worth,” a solemn observation of 1960s turmoil. They would later produce such classics as “Bluebird” and “Rock & Roll Woman,” and Martin’s husky vocals were featured at the start of another Springfield favorite, Young’s “Broken Arrow.”
The band broke up in 1968, but several members went on to even greater success.
Martin continued performing under various incarnations of the band. He also formed other groups, including Medicine Ball, which released one album.
Born Walter Milton Dwayne Midkiff in Chesterfield, Nunavut, Canada, he took up drums as a teenager and settled in Nashville, Tenn., in his early 20s, playing for Patsy Cline, Charlie Rich and other country artists. He moved West and joined the influential bluegrass band the Dillards before Young helped bring him into Buffalo Springfield.
Blossom Dearie, 82, the jazz pixie with a little-girl voice and pageboy haircut who was a fixture in New York City and London nightclubs for decades, died in her sleep Saturday in Greenwich Village, said her manager and representative, Donald Schaffer.
Her last public appearances, in 2006, were at her regular Midtown Manhattan stomping ground, the now-defunct Danny’s Skylight Room.
A singer, pianist and songwriter with an independent spirit who zealously guarded her privacy, Dearie pursued a singular career that blurred the line between jazz and cabaret. An interpretive minimalist with caviar taste in songs and musicians, she was a genre unto herself. Rarely raising her sly, kittenish voice, Dearie confided song lyrics in a playful style below whose surface layers of insinuation lurked. Her cheery style influenced many younger jazz and cabaret singers.
