Poly Styrene, 53, the braces-wearing singer who belted out “Oh bondage, up yours!” with the band X-Ray Spex, died of breast cancer Monday.
X-Ray Spex released just one album, 1978’s “Germ Free Adolescents.” But its aggressively catchy single “Oh Bondage, Up Yours!” became a punk anthem.
Of British and Somali heritage, Styrene was born Marion Elliott-Said in 1957 in the London suburb of Bromley. As a teenager, she had a reggae single but was inspired to form a punk band after seeing the Sex Pistols in 1976.
Styrene later joined the Hare Krishna movement and released several solo albums, the most recent, “Generation Indigo,” just last month.
She is survived by her daughter, Celeste Bell-Dos Santos, who fronts the band Debutant Disco.
Peter Lieberson, 64, a major American composer, died Saturday in Israel of complications from lymphoma, according to music publishing company G. Schirmer.
Lieberson, who lived in Santa Fe, wrote his most inspired songs for his love, the late mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. He was in Israel for medical treatment and had been diagnosed with the cancer while still mourning Hunt Lieberson’s 2006 death from breast cancer.
He was a well-established composer years before he met her in 1997. His works were performed by the top U.S. orchestras and soloists, including cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianists Emanuel Ax and Peter Serkin.
Hubert “Hub” Schlafly, 91, a key developer of the device that came to be known as the teleprompter, died April 20 in Stamford, Conn.
He won an Emmy Award for his contributions to the innovation. Schlafly was a friend of actor Fred Barton Jr., who wanted a way to remember his lines. Author Laurie Brown says Schlafly, Barton and business partner Irving Berlin Kahn developed the teleprompter, which made its debut in 1950 on the soap opera “The First Hundred Years.” Schlafly eventually became president of TelePrompTer Corp.
Herbert Hoover became the first politician to use the device in 1952.
Denver Post wire services
