Where Are They Buried? (79 page)

By 1977 Donna had released two more albums chock-f of seductive and sexy wailings including “I Feel Love” and “Hot Stuff,” but quickly became uncomfortable with the sex symbol persona that was being created for her. “I’m not just sex, sex, sex,” she complained. So depressed that she attempted suicide in the latter part of that year, an attempt that was thwarted only by the chance entry of a pair of hotel maids, Donna received counseling and sought consolation in religion, becoming a born-again Christian in 1979.

Born-again or not, with her doe eyes, cascade of hair, and sinuous dance moves, Donna Summer remained disco music’s glamorous public face. Her voice, airy and ethereal or brightly assertive, sailed over dance floors and leaped from radios into the 1980s, though some of her glitter lost its luster in 1981, especially among her enormous base of gay fans, when she described AIDS as divine punishment for an immoral lifestyle. Though she repeatedly denied making such a statement, many boycotted her music, and by the time they reconciled, her hit-making streak was broken.

Still she continued to perform and, seeking to expand her catalog to a broader audience, she tried new wave rock on
The Wanderer,
switched to an R&B format for
Donna Summer,
and reached a new commercial peak with the pop rock album
She Works Hard for the Money
in 1983. A Christian rock song, “He’s a Rebel,” won her a Grammy for best inspirational performance and the following year she wrote a number-one country single for Dolly Parton, “Starting Over Again.” In 2008 Donna reappeared on the dance-music charts when three songs from her last studio album,
Crayons,
reached number one.

Upon winning the first Grammy ever given for best dance music, which was for a remix of “Carry On” in 2003, she said, “This music will always be with us. Whether they call it disco music or hip-hop or bebop or flip-flop, whatever they’re going to call it, I think music to dance to will always be with us.”

As Donna was never a smoker, fans were shocked to learn of her death at 53 of lung cancer. She battled the ailment for more than a year while keeping her medical condition a secret known only to her doctors and a close circle of family. She was buried at Harpeth Hills Memory Gardens in Nashville, Tennessee.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
From the Natchez Trace Parkway, take Route 100 west for three miles, turn right onto South Harpeth Road, and then enter the cemetery at the next right.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
In the cemetery, make a left at the first drive, and then take the next right. On the left will be the Faith section where you won’t miss the oversized Nacarato family monument. Walk down the path to the left of Nacaratos’, and there you’ll find the bad girl doing her last dance, on the left at the iron-gated “S” plot.

SEPTEMBER 13, 1925 – JUNE 6, 1999

A long time ago, on a cold, winter night in a Chicago restaurant, four-year-old Mel Torme was bouncing on his father’s knee and singing along with the band when the bandleader invited him on stage. Mel was such a hit that he became a regular with the band and soon, every Monday night in exchange for five dollars and dinner for his family, little Mel belted out tunes. In 1933, when Mel was eight, he became a radio actor playing young boys on such programs as
Little Orphan Annie
and
Jack Armstrong, All-American Boy
, until 1941 when his voice changed. At 15, he sang one of his own compositions, “Lament to Love,” during an audition with bandleader Harry James, who recorded Mel’s song and turned it into a top-ten hit. Barely out of puberty, Mel was a star.

Before joining the Army during World War II, Mel was cast in the film
Higher and Higher
, which also marked the film debut of another budding star, Frank Sinatra. Later came a couple of musicals and stints as a drummer with a few big bands, including Tommy Dorsey’s. In 1945 Mel published the best known of his 250 songs, “The Christmas Song,” famous for its signature opening, “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire … ” The tune would become a holiday classic after Nat King Cole added his smooth flair. Though the song took less than an hour to write, it caught on because “it was a series of random Christmas images and impressions that touch everybody in one way or another,” Mel said in 1990. “You should see those royalty checks, even now. Whew!”

During the 1950s, the elegant musical traditions that Mel represented were displaced by rock and roll, and as his recording popularity waned, he moved into jazz. In that genre he also earned distinction, and by the end of the decade, Mel, “the Velvet Fog,” had parlayed his mellifluous and perfectly articulated vocals into one of the greatest male jazz forces ever.

When the interest in jazz ebbed during the 1960s, Mel pursued other interests. He became musical advisor for
The Judy Garland
Show
and wrote episodes of the television series
Run for Your Life
and
The Virginian
. After publishing a biography of his friend, drummer Buddy Rich, Mel organized a benefit to help cover some of Rich’s substantial IRS debt.

By the 1970s jazz was on the rebound and Mel in particular benefited. During the last twenty years of his career, he performed up to 200 live dates annually and released a steady stream of recordings, including
Top Drawer
and
An Evening with George Shearing and Mel Torme
, both of which won Grammy awards. Younger audiences got to know Mel through his guest appearances on the sitcom
Night Court
.

Mel had a few high-profile marriages and, unfortunately, divorces. In 1949 the Velvet Fog wed actress Candy Toxton, but by 1956 he was hitched to Arlene Miles, a model. In 1966 British actress Janette Scott got the nod, but they were done by 1977. After that third divorce, Mel swore he’d never marry again—until Ali Severson came along ten years later.

Mel suffered a stroke in 1998, and his recovery was complicated when he contracted pneumonia the next month, followed by a gastrointestinal problem. Finally, with Ali and his five children at his side, Mel died at the UCLA Medical Center from the complications of his ailments at 73.

He was buried at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
This little cemetery holds numerous celebrities and is peculiarly located behind the office complex at 10850 Wilshire Blvd., which is just about a half-mile east of I-405.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Enter the cemetery, turn left, and there on the grass you’ll see Mel’s distinctive tablet, just a few feet from the crypt wall.

MARCH 27, 1924 – APRIL 3, 1990

As the daughter of two musicians, Sassy Sarah Vaughan was classically trained and thus tended to treat her voice more as an instrument than as a vehicle for lyrics. Negotiating wide leaps within her full-bodied contralto range and making fluid alterations of timbre from a bell-like clarity to a bluesy growl, she set the improvisational world of jazz on its head and carved for herself a secure role in its history.

Through the 1940s, Sarah recorded with many of the jazz greats of the day, including Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, after which record companies clamored for her rights. She subsequently enjoyed her own recording contracts with numerous labels throughout the remainder of her life. In 1989 she received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and was inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame in 1990.

At 66, Sarah died of lung cancer and was buried at Glendale Cemetery in Bloomfield, New Jersey.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
At Exit 150 off the Garden State Parkway, Glendale Cemetery is just a quarter-mile east along Hoover Avenue.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Enter the cemetery, bear left, then make an immediate right so that the Capriglione crypt is on your left. Drive along this road and, at the four-way intersection, you’ll see Sarah’s grave on the left.

SEPTEMBER 12, 1944 – JULY 4, 2003

During a seven-month jail stint for stealing tires, Barry White vowed to give up on crime and concentrate instead on music after hearing Elvis Presley’s hit “It’s Now or Never.” It was a wise move; while Barry’s lush baritone voice earned him credence—and millions of dollars—as the consummate crooner of lovers young and old, his brother Darryl was killed in a dispute over four bucks.

Barry started out working as a talent scout and spread his wings quickly; in 1972 he produced Love Unlimited’s smash-hit “Walking in the Rain with the One I Love,” and the next year began a solo career of his own. To the heartbeat of muffled drums, while strings hovered and guitars echoed in the distance, Barry reassured the sentiments of love with his bottomless bass in a series of erotic pop-soul hits including “You’re the First, the Last, My Everything” and “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe.” Another signature of Barry’s music was his steamy spoken introductions and interludes that created a fantasy world of opulence and desire and destined his smooth classics to countless bedrooms.

After lava lamps, crushed velvet, and water beds peaked in the late 1970s, Barry’s career faded though his image and hit
songs proved durable. In the 1990s, children of his original fans discovered his sensuous magic when rappers and dance-music acts sampled his sounds, which initiated a career resurgence. In 1994 his
The Icon Is Love
album sold a couple million while 1999’s
Staying Power
won two rhythm-and-blues Grammies. By that time, Barry’s rumbling and raspy voice had become synonymous with seduction and he was universally recognized as the supreme man of love. But despite his erotically charged music, Barry never made tabloid headlines and his private life was sedate. “People are always looking for me to be a freak,” he said in an interview. “What does Barry White do when he relaxes? I play video games. I deal with my dogs. I spend time with my children. I’m not a party animal.”

At 58, Barry died from complications of kidney failure. He was cremated and his ashes remain with his family.

SEPTEMBER 17, 1923 – JANUARY 1, 1953

Called the “Hillbilly Shakespeare,” Hiram “Hank” Williams wrote simple melodies that mixed the sounds of gospel, blues, and country music, and complemented them with lyrics that evoked powerful emotion. He is often credited with introducing country music to the general public.

As a kid, Hank shined shoes and sold peanuts on the street to bring home a few pennies for his poor Alabama family. But by thirteen, after somehow getting his hands on a guitar and teaching himself to play, he christened himself “the Drifting Cowboy,” and within a year had his own band that passed the hat at honky-tonks and square dances.

With the onset of World War II, Hank temporarily shelved his music career in order to work at a shipyard, but by 1944, his Drifting Cowboys had reunited and were regulars on the
Louisiana Hayride
radio show. Hank’s version of “Lovesick Blues” went to number one on the 1949
Billboard
charts, and on the strength of that song, he was invited to perform at the Grand Ole Opry, where he soon became a regular. During the next couple of years, Hank was on top of his game and the hits came in quick succession, including “Cold, Cold Heart,” “Hey, Good Lookin’,” and “Your Cheatin’ Heart.”

Despite his success, though, Hank’s personal life was a mess and his marriage collapsed due to his womanizing and abusive behavior. As a sufferer of chronic back pain, Hank became
addicted to painkillers, and his alcoholism was beyond control, as well. After arriving at gigs too drunk to perform (or not showing up at all) he was finally fired by the Grand Old Opry in August of 1952.

Hank’s health deteriorated from the abuse and, at 29, he died en route to a show in Ohio of a “heart attack from excessive drinking.”

Hank was buried at Oakwood Annex Cemetery in Montgomery, Alabama.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
From I-65, take Exit 172 and follow Herron Street east, which will shortly curve to the left and become Bibb Street. After ¼ mile turn left off of Bibb Street and onto Molton, then right onto Tallapoosa. Tallapoosa will bear to the right and become Jefferson Street, which merges into Upper Wetumpka Road. After continuing for a mile along Upper Wetumpka, you’ll see the cemetery on the left.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Enter the cemetery and drive to the circle at the top of the hill. You won’t miss the two tall monoliths marking the graves of Hank and his first wife, Audrey.

MAY 5, 1942 – APRIL 6, 1998

Tammy Wynette was raised primarily by her grandparents in Mississippi, and by seventeen was married to a sometime bootlegger. The couple lived in a log cabin with no indoor plumbing and Tammy did the cooking in a fireplace. The marriage was short-lived, and after it ended, Tammy supported her three children as a hairdresser—but her dream was to make it as a singer. After ten-hour days in a beauty salon, she’d perform late into the night.