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May he Rest In Peace.

Mad Magazine illustrator Mort Drucker dies at 91

Mort Drucker, the Mad Magazine cartoonist who for decades lovingly spoofed politicians, celebrities and popular culture, died Thursday at 91.

Drucker’s daughter, Laurie Bachner, told The Associated Press that he fell ill last week, having difficulty walking and developing breathing problems. She did not give a specific cause of death, and said that he was not tested for the coronavirus. He died at his home in Woodbury, N.Y., with his wife of more than 70 years, Barbara, by his side.

“I think my father had the best life anyone could hope for,” Bachner said. “He was married to the only woman he ever loved and got to make a living out of what he loved to do.”

Mad magazine was a cultural institution for millions of baby boomers, and Drucker was an institution at Mad. A New York City native, he joined Mad in its early days, the mid-1950s, and remained well into the 21st century. Few major events or public figures during that time escaped Drucker’s satire, whether Star Trek and The Godfather or Steve Martin and Jerry Seinfeld.

In large strokes, Drucker took in every crease, crevice and bold feature. The big jaws of Kirk Douglas and Jay Leno bulged even larger, while the ears of Barack Obama looked like wings about to take flight. Being drawn by Drucker became a kind of show business rite of passage, with Michael J. Fox once telling Johnny Carson that he knew he had made it when he appeared in a Drucker cartoon.

Drucker’s admirers also included Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz and Star Wars filmmaker George Lucas, who in the 1970s wrote a fan letter to Mad even as his lawyers were threatening to sue over a magazine caricature. (The suit was never filed.)

Besides Mad, Drucker drew for Time magazine, DC Comics, for an ad campaign for fruit and vegetables and for the heavy metal band Anthrax, which commissioned him to design art for its State of Euphoria album.

Some of Drucker’s illustrations, include a Time cover drawing of Richard Nixon and Mao Zedong playing table tennis, ended up in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. In 2017, Drucker was inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame.

“As Mad magazine became an established [albeit absurd] voice in the nation’s cultural mainstream, many of the visual masters who showcased the magazine’s written content eventually became icons in and of themselves,” the Hall’s citation reads. “Indeed, Mort Drucker proved to be one of the most popular artists of the group that collectively came to be known as the ‘Usual Gang of Idiots.'”

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His song will live forever. May he rest in peace.

‘I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll’ songwriter Alan Merrill dies from coronavirus

Singer, guitarist, and songwriter Alan Merrill has died in New York at the age of 69 as a result of the coronavirus. Merrill was best known for writing the track “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll.” Merrill originally wrote and recorded the iconic song while he was a member of the band the Arrows, who released the track in 1975. The song would later become a huge hit for Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, who topped the charts with the tune in 1982.

Merrill was inspired to write the song as a reaction to the Rolling Stones’ single “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It).” “I’d met Mick Jagger socially a few times, and I knew he was hanging around with Prince Rupert Lowenstein and people like that — jet setters,” Merrill told songfacts.com. “I almost felt like ‘It’s Only Rock and Roll’ was an apology to those jet-set princes and princesses that he was hanging around with — the aristocracy, you know. That was my interpretation as a young man: Okay, I love rock and roll.”

Merrill also played with Rick Derringer and Meatloaf as well as pursuing a solo career.

The musician’s death was announced by his daughter Laura on Facebook.

“The Coronavirus took my father this morning,” she wrote on Sunday. “I was given 2 minutes to say my goodbyes before I was rushed out. He seemed peaceful and as I left there was still a glimmer of hope that he wouldn’t be a ticker on the right hand side of the CNN/Fox news screen. I walked 50 blocks home still with hope in my heart. The city that I knew was empty. I felt I was the only person here and perhaps in many ways I was. By the time I got in the doors to my apartment I received the news that he was gone.”

Joan Jett has paid tribute to Merrill on Twitter.

“I’ve just learned of the awful news that Alan Merrill has passed,” she wrote. “My thoughts and love go to his family, friends and music community as a whole. I can still remember watching the Arrows on TV in London and being blown away by the song that screamed hit to me. With deep gratitude and sadness, wishing him a safe journey to the other side.”

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Oh no!! Get well soon, Mr. Prine!!

Singer-Songwriter John Prine Hospitalized in Critical Condition with Coronavirus Symptoms

Singer-songwriter John Prine may have contracted the coronavirus. According to a message posted by the Prine family on his official social media accounts, the 73-year-old is in critical condition with symptoms synonymous with the current health crisis.

“After a sudden onset of Covid-19 symptoms, John was hospitalized on Thursday (3/26),” explains the message. “He was intubated Saturday evening, and continues to receive care, but his situation is critical. This is hard news for us to share. But so many of you have loved and supported John over the years, we wanted to let you know, and give you the chance to send on more of that love and support now. And know that we love you, and John loves you.”

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Very sad news. May he rest in peace.

Country singer Joe Diffie dies of coronavirus complications

EW YORK — Country singer Joe Diffie, who had a string of hits in the 1990s with chart-topping ballads and honky-tonk singles like “Home” and “Pickup Man,” has died after testing positive for COVID-19. He was 61.

Diffie on Friday announced he had contracted the coronavirus, becoming the first country star to go public with such a diagnosis. Diffie’s publicist Scott Adkins said the singer died Sunday in Nashville, Tennessee, due to complications from the virus.

Diffie, a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was a member of the Grand Ole Opry for more than 25 years. His hits included “Honky Tonk Attitude,” “Prop Me Up Beside the Jukebox (If I Die),” “Bigger Than the Beatles” and “If the Devil Danced (In Empty Pockets).”

His mid-90s albums “Honkey Tonk Attitude” and “Third Rock From the Sun” went platinum. Eighteen of Diffie’s singles landed in the top 10, with five going No. 1. In his 2013 single “1994,” Jason Aldean name-checked the ’90s country mainstay.

Diffie is survived by his wife, Tara Terpening Diffie, and five children from his five marriages.

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Kenny Rogers was a part of my family growing up. I love him. RIP Kenny!!

Country singer Kenny Rogers dead at 81

Actor-singer Kenny Rogers, the smooth, Grammy-winning balladeer who spanned jazz, folk, country and pop with such hits as Lucille, Lady and Islands in the Stream and embraced his persona as “The Gambler” on record and on TV died Friday night. He was 81.

He died at home in Sandy Springs, Ga., representative Keith Hagan told The Associated Press. He was under hospice care and died of natural causes, Hagan said.

The Houston-born performer with the husky voice and silver beard sold tens of millions of records, won three Grammys and was the star of TV movies based on “The Gambler” and other songs, making him a superstar in the ’70s and ’80s. Rogers thrived for some 60 years before retired from touring in 2017 at age 79. Despite his crossover success, he always preferred to be thought of as a country singer.

“You either do what everyone else is doing and you do it better, or you do what no one else is doing and you don’t invite comparison,” Rogers told The Associated Press in 2015. “And I chose that way because I could never be better than Johnny Cash or Willie or Waylon at what they did. So I found something that I could do that didn’t invite comparison to them. And I think people thought it was my desire to change country music. But that was never my issue.”

“Kenny was one of those artists who transcended beyond one format and geographic borders,” says Sarah Trahern, chief executive officer of the Country Music Association. “He was a global superstar who helped introduce country music to audiences all around the world.”

Rogers was a five-time CMA Award winner and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2013.

A true rags-to-riches story, Rogers was raised in public housing in Houston Heights with seven siblings. As a 20-year-old, he had a gold single called That Crazy Feeling, under the name Kenneth Rogers, but when that early success stalled, he joined a jazz group, the Bobby Doyle Trio, as a standup bass player.

But his breakthrough came when he was asked to join the New Christy Minstrels, a folk group, in 1966. The band reformed as First Edition and scored a pop hit with the psychedelic song, Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In). Rogers and First Edition mixed country-rock and folk on songs like Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town, a story of a Vietnam veteran begging his girlfriend to stay.

After the group broke up in 1974, Rogers started his solo career and found a big hit with the sad country ballad Lucille, in 1977, which crossed over to the pop charts and earned Rogers his first Grammy. Suddenly the star, Rogers added hit after hit for more than a decade.

The Gambler, the Grammy-winning story song penned by Don Schlitz, came out in 1978 and became his signature song with a signature refrain: “You gotta know when to hold `em, know when to fold ’em.” The song spawned a hit TV movie of the same name and several more sequels featuring Rogers as professional gambler Brady Hawkes, and led to a lengthy side career for Rogers as a TV actor and host of several TV specials.

Other hits included You Decorated My Life, Every Time Two Fools Collide with Dottie West, Don’t Fall In Love with a Dreamer with Kim Carnes, and Coward of the County. One of his biggest successes was Lady, written by Lionel Richie, a chart topper for six weeks straight in 1980. Richie said in a 2017 interview with the AP that he often didn’t finish songs until he had already pitched them, which was the case for “Lady.”

“In the beginning, the song was called, Baby,” Richie said. “And because when I first sat with him, for the first 30 minutes, all he talked about was he just got married to a real lady. A country guy like him is married to a lady. So, he said, `By the way, what’s the name of the song?”‘ Richie replies: “Lady.”

Over the years, Rogers worked often with female duet partners, most memorably, Dolly Parton. The two were paired at the suggestion of the Bee Gees’ Barry Gibb, who wrote Islands in the Stream.

“Barry was producing an album on me and he gave me this song,” Rogers told the AP in 2017. “And I went and learned it and went into the studio and sang it for four days. And I finally looked at him and said, ‘Barry, I don’t even like this song anymore.’ And he said, ‘You know what we need? We need Dolly Parton.’ I thought, ‘Man, that guy is a visionary.'”

Coincidentally, Parton was actually in the same recording studio in Los Angeles when the idea came up.

“From the moment she marched into that room, that song never sounded the same,” Rogers said. “It took on a whole new spirit.”

The two singers toured together, including in Australia and New Zealand in 1984 and 1987, and were featured in a HBO concert special. Over the years the two would continue to record together, including their last duet, “You Can’t Make Old Friends,” which was released in 2013. Parton reprised “Islands in the Stream” with Rogers during his all-star retirement concert held in Nashville in October 2017.

Rogers invested his time and money in a lot of other endeavours over his career, including a passion for photography that led to several books, as well as an autobiography, Making It With Music. He had a chain of restaurants called “Kenny Rogers Roasters,” and was a partner behind a riverboat in Branson, Missouri. He was also involved in numerous charitable causes, among them the Red Cross and MusiCares, and was part of the all-star We are the World recording for famine relief.

By the ’90s, his ability to chart hits had waned, although he still remained a popular live entertainer with regular touring. Still he was an inventive businessman and never stopped trying to find his way back onto the charts.

At the age of 61, Rogers had a brief comeback on the country charts in 2000 with a hit song Buy Me A Rose, thanks to his other favourite medium, television. Producers of the series Touched By An Angel wanted him to appear in an episode, and one of his managers suggested the episode be based on his latest single. That cross-promotional event earned him his first No. 1 country song in 13 years.

Rogers is survived by his wife, Wanda, and his sons Justin, Jordan, Chris and Kenny Jr., as well as two brothers, a sister and grandchildren, nieces and nephews, his representative said. The family is planning a private service “out of concern for the national COVID-19 emergency,” a statement posted early Saturday read. A public memorial will be held at a later date.

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Wouldn’t it be great if they just focussed on making great pop music again? It would!!

Katy Perry says she and Taylor Swift text each other ‘a lot’ after ending feud

Katy Perry and Taylor Swift may not spend a lot of time together, but they’re still in touch after publicly ending their feud last year.

The American Idol judge and singer, 35, opened up to Stellar Magazine about her relationship with Swift, 30, and why it was so important to reconcile after years of not being on the best terms.

“We don’t have a very close relationship because we are very busy, but we text a lot,” Perry said, as she went on to praise how vulnerable Swift was in her Netflix documentary Miss Americana.

“I was really excited for her to be able to show that to the world: that things aren’t perfect, they don’t have to be and it’s more beautiful when they aren’t,” Perry said.

Swift and Perry publicly ended their feud when they costarred in Swift’s music video for “You Need to Calm Down” last year — hugging it out while wearing coordinating burger and French fry costumes.

“It was important to make that appearance in the music video because people want people to look up to,” Perry told Stellar Magazine. “We wanted it to be an example of unity. Forgiveness is important. It’s so powerful.”

Last year, Perry explained that the pair decided to put their feud to rest in order to set an example for their younger fans.

“It was actually just a misunderstanding but we have such big groups of people that like to follow us, and so they kind of started turning against each other a little bit too,” the singer explained during an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Perry went on to explain that their path to reconciliation began when she “sent a literal olive branch” to Swift’s Reputation tour the previous year.

“Then we started seeing each other out and about and I just would walk up to her and say, ‘Hey, how are you?’ ” she shared. “It’s like, we have so much in common — there’s probably only 10 people in the world that have the same things in common — I was like, ‘We should really be friends over that and share our strengths and our weaknesses and our challenges. We can help each other get through a lot.’ Because it’s not as easy as it seems sometimes.”

Swift shared a similar sentiment last year, telling BBC Radio 1 that she and her fellow pop star had “grown past allowing ourselves to be pitted against each other.”

“The Man“ singer also revealed that she and Perry have been on good terms for a while before the music video, but wanted to make sure they were “solid” before announcing their reconciliation to fans.

“You know, she and I have been fine for a while and really on good terms but we didn’t know if we were ever gonna really tell people about it. We wanted to make sure that was solid between us before we ever made the public aware,” Swift told Capital Breakfast during another interview.

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“Neil Peart had the hands of God.”

Dave Grohl on Rush Drummer Neil Peart: ‘We All Learned From Him’

Dave Grohl, a Neil Peart acolyte who inducted Rush into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, penned a tribute to the drummer following news of Peart’s death Friday.

“Today, the world lost a true giant in the history of rock & roll,” Grohl said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “An inspiration to millions with an unmistakable sound who spawned generations of musicians (like myself) to pick up two sticks and chase a dream. A kind, thoughtful, brilliant man who ruled our radios and turntables not only with his drumming, but also his beautiful words.”

Grohl continued, “I still vividly remember my first listen of 2112 when I was young. It was the first time I really listened to a drummer. And since that day, music has never been the same. His power, precision, and composition was incomparable. He was called ‘The Professor’ for a reason: We all learned from him.”

As Grohl told Rolling Stone in 2013, ahead of Rush’s Rock Hall induction, it was Peart’s work that inspired him to pick up the drumsticks. “When I got 2112 when I was eight years old, it fucking changed the direction of my life. I heard the drums. It made me want to become a drummer,” Grohl said.

The Foo Fighters frontman and former Nirvana drummer also reminisced about meeting Peart for the first time during rehearsals for the Rock Hall ceremony. “I was coming to rehearsal and I was meeting Neil for the first time, and this man was as influential as any religion or any hero or any person in someone’s life. He said, ‘So nice to meet you. Can I make you a coffee?’ And he made me a coffee, man,” Grohl said in 2013. “And later on that night, I went to dinner and had a couple glasses of wine, and I started fucking crying because my hero made me a fucking coffee. It was unbelievable, man. So that’s kind of how this whole experience has been.”

Both Peart and Grohl landed in the upper echelon of Rolling Stone‘s list of the 100 Greatest Drummers of All Time. Grohl, like many drummers in rock, paid tribute to one of the greatest to ever play the instrument. “Thank you, Neil, for making our lives a better place with your music. You will be forever remembered and sorely missed by all of us. And my heartfelt condolences to the Rush family,” he wrote. “God bless Neil Peart.”

Grohl’s Foo Fighters bandmate Taylor Hawkins had a more succinct, yet equally poignant, statement. “Neil Peart had the hands of God,” he tells Rolling Stone. “End of story.”

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I am beyond shock and heartbreak. Thank you for everything, Professor. #RIPNeilPeart

Neil Peart, Rush Drummer Who Set a New Standard for Rock Virtuosity, Dead at 67

Neil Peart, the virtuoso drummer and lyricist for Rush, died Tuesday, January 7th, in Santa Monica, California, at age 67, according to Elliot Mintz, a family spokesperson. The cause was brain cancer, which Peart had been quietly battling for three-and-a-half years. A representative for the band confirmed the news to Rolling Stone.

Peart was one of rock’s greatest drummers, with a flamboyant yet precise style that paid homage to his hero, the Who’s Keith Moon, while expanding the technical and imaginative possibilities of his instrument. He joined singer-bassist Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson in Rush in 1974, and his musicianship and literate, philosophical lyrics – which initially drew on Ayn Rand and science fiction, and later became more personal and emotive – helped make the trio one of the classic-rock era’s essential bands. His drum fills on songs like “Tom Sawyer” were pop hooks in their own right, each one an indelible mini-composition; his lengthy drum solos, carefully constructed and packed with drama, were highlights of every Rush concert.

In a statement released Friday afternoon, Lee and Lifeson called Peart their “friend, soul brother and bandmate over 45 years,” and said he had been “incredibly brave” in his battle with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. “We ask that friends, fans, and media alike understandably respect the family’s need for privacy and peace at this extremely painful and difficult time,” Lee and Lifeson wrote. “Those wishing to express their condolences can choose a cancer research group or charity of their choice and make a donation in Neil Peart’s name. Rest in peace, brother.”

A rigorous autodidact, Peart was also the author of numerous books, beginning with 1996’s The Masked Rider: Cycling in West Africa, which chronicled a 1988 bicycle tour in Cameroon – in that memoir, he recalled an impromptu hand-drum performance that drew an entire village to watch.

Peart never stopped believing in the possibilities of rock (“a gift beyond price,” he called it in Rush’s 1980 track “The Spirit of Radio”) and despised what he saw as over-commercialization of the music industry and dumbed-down artists he saw as “panderers.” “It’s about being your own hero,” he told Rolling Stone in 2015. “I set out to never betray the values that 16-year-old had, to never sell out, to never bow to the man. A compromise is what I can never accept.”

Peart was a drummer’s drummer, beloved by his peers; he won prizes in Modern Drummer’s annual readers’ poll 38 times, and was a formative influence on countless young players. “His power, precision, and composition was incomparable,” Dave Grohl said in a statement released Friday. “He was called ‘The Professor’ for a reason: We all learned from him.”

“Neil is the most air-drummed-to drummer of all time,” former Police drummer Stewart Copeland told Rolling Stone in 2015. “Neil pushes that band, which has a lot of musicality, a lot of ideas crammed into every eight bars — but he keeps the throb, which is the important thing. And he can do that while doing all kinds of cool shit.”

Rush finished their final tour in August of 2015, after releasing their last album, Clockwork Angels, in 2012. Peart was done with the road. He questioned whether he could stay physically capable of playing his demanding parts, and was eager to spend more time with his wife, Carrie Nuttal, and daughter Olivia.

On August 10th, 1997, Peart’s 19-year-old daughter, Selena, died in a single-car accident on the long drive to her university in Toronto. Five months later, Selena’s mother — Peart’s common-law wife of 23 years, Jackie Taylor – was diagnosed with terminal cancer, quickly succumbing. Shattered, Peart told his bandmates to consider him retired, and embarked on a solitary motorcycle trip across the United States. He remarried in 2000, and found his way back to Rush by 2001.

Peart grew up in Port Dalhousie, a middle-class Canadian suburb 70 miles from Toronto, where he took his first drum lessons at age 13. As a teen, he permed his hair, took to wearing a cape and purple boots on the city bus, and scrawled “God is dead” on his bedroom wall. At one point, he got in trouble for pounding out beats on his desk during class. His teacher’s idea of punishment was to insist that he bang on his desk nonstop for an hour’s worth of detention, time he happily spent re-creating Keith Moon’s parts from Tommy.

Peart joined Rush just after the recording of their first album, replacing original drummer John Rutsey. His breakthrough with the band came with 1976’s 2112 — the first side of the album was a rock opera set in that far-future year, combining Peart’s sci-fi vision and Rand-ian ideology (which he later disavowed, calling himself a “bleeding-heart libertarian”) with explosive prog theatrics. A later milestone came with the 1982 “Subdivisions,” an autobiographical tale of suburban misery (“The suburbs have no charms to soothe the restless dreams of youth”).

“A lot of the early fantasy stuff was just for fun,” Peart told Rolling Stone. “Because I didn’t believe yet that I could put something real into a song. ‘Subdivisions’ happened to be an anthem for a lot of people who grew up under those circumstances, and from then on, I realized what I most wanted to put in a song was human experience.”

Around then, Rush’s music become more concise, without losing its complexity. “When punk and New Wave came,” Peart told Rolling Stone, “we were young enough to gently incorporate it into our music, rather than getting reactionary about it — like other musicians who I heard saying, ‘What are we supposed to do now, forget how to play?’ We were fans enough to go, ‘Oh, we want that too.’ And by [1981’s] Moving Pictures, we nailed it, learning how to be seamlessly complex and to compact a large arrangement into a concise statement.”

Always suspicious of showbiz, Peart spent much of his downtime on the road in Rush’s early days buried in a stack of books. In the final years, he avoided the usual touring routine by traveling from gig to gig via motorcycle, taking off shortly after each show’s conclusion.

In the Nineties, he produced two tribute albums to jazz legend Buddy Rich, and at a moment when many of his fans already considered him the world’s best rock drummer, Peart began taking lessons with Freddie Gruber, a jazz player and noted drum instructor. Peart credited Gruber (and another teacher, Peter Erskine) with helping him re-create his technique and sense of time from scratch, leading him to a more fluid approach and a deeper groove. “What is a master but a master student?” Peart told Rolling Stone in 2012. “There’s a responsibility on you to keep getting better.”

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So sad. May she Rest In Peace.

Marie Fredriksson of Roxette dies at 61

Roxette singer Marie Fredriksson has died aged 61.

With bandmate Per Gessle, she achieved enormous success in the late 1980s and early 1990s as the Swedish duo scored four number one singles in the US charts, including two (‘The Look’ and ‘Listen to Your Heart’) from Roxette’s second album Look Sharp!

The hits continued well into the late nineties (‘Wish I Could Fly’ was their last top 40 single in the UK in 1999) but sadly Fredriksson was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2002, although she recovered enough to return to touring with Roxette from around 2008 and the band released their last album Good Karma in 2016.

On Doctors advice Marie didn’t tour that record and unfortunately the cancer returned. In a moving statement posted on the Roxette website Per Gessle described Marie as “an outstanding musician, a master of the voice, an amazing performer.”

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Maybe the third time’s the charm?

Red Hot Chili Peppers Announce the Return of Guitarist John Frusciante

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are in a bittersweet transitional period, but fans are thrilled to hear that a familiar face will be coming back into the fold in the not-so-distant future.

On Sunday (Dec. 15), the Angeleno rock act announced that Josh Klinghoffer, the guitarist who’s been playing in the group for the last decade, will no longer be rounding out their quartet. In a statement posted to Instagram, the band writes that they’re “parting ways” with Klinghoffer — who plays on two RHCP albums, 2011’s I’m with You and 2016’s The Getaway — and that they’re “grateful for our time with him, and the countless gifts he shared with us.”

The silver lining: Klinghoffer’s place will be filled by John Frusciante, who joined the band following the death of original guitarist Hillel Slovak in 1988 through 1992, and again from 1998-2009. These periods correspond with some of the most significant stretches of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ history, with Frusciante appearing on 1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magic, their mainstream breakthrough, and 1999’s Californication, which earned RHCP a Grammy for best rock song with the LP’s single, “Scar Tissue,” in 2000.

Frusciante’s career is dotted with prolific solo work in rock and electronic, with 14 studio albums to his name, as well as collaborations with the Mars Volta and other artists.