Day in History 19 February – Bon Scott – Charles Trenet – Johnny Paycheck – Harper Lee – Umberto Eco

On this day in 1980, Scottish-born Australian rock musician, lead singer and lyricist of Australian heavy rock band AC/DC, Bon Scott, died in a parked car at 67 Overhill Road in East Dulwich, South London, at the age of 33.  The official cause of death was listed as acute alcohol poisoning.  Born Ronald Belford Scott on 9 July 1946 in Kirriemuir, Scotland.  His family moved to Melbourne, Australia when he was six.  Scott became the lead singer of AC/DC in 1974.  The band went on to release some of the best heavy rock albums, in my opinion, including; Let There Be Rock, Powerage, If You Want Blood You’ve Got It and Highway to Hell.  After Scott’s death, the remaining members of AC/DC, Angus Young, Malcolm Young, Cliff Williams and Phil Rudd briefly considered disbanding.  However, they decided that Scott would have wanted them to continue. With the blessings of Scott’s family, the band hired Brian Johnson as the new vocalist and lyricist.  Five months after Scott’s death, AC/DC finished the work they began with Scott and released Back in Black as a tribute to him with two tracks from the album, “Hells Bells” and “Back in Black”, dedicated to his memory.  One of my all-time favorite bands.  

The Final Footprint – Scott was cremated and his cremains were interred in Fremantle Cemetery in Fremantle, Australia.  The site of the interment is marked by a plaque inscribed; LOVED SON OF ISA AND CHICK BROTHER OF DEREK GRAEME AND VALARIE CLOSE TO OUR HEARTS HE WILL ALWAYS STAY LOVED AND REMEMBERED EVERY DAY.  A bronze statue of Scott by Greg James, was installed at Fisherman’s Wharf in Fremantle, Western Australia.  On 6 May 2006, the town of Kirriemuir in Scotland held a service and unveiled a Caithness stone slab commemorating Scott.  The memorial is inscribed; with his name and birth and death dates and LET THERE BE ROCK – SONG WRITER AND LEAD SINGER WITH AC/DC THE WORLD’S GREATEST ROCK ‘N’ ROLL LEGEND.

#RIP #OTD in 2001 singer-songwriter (“Boum!”, “La Mer”, “Nationale 7″, “Y’a d’la joie”, “Que reste-t-il de nos amours?”, “Ménilmontant”, “Douce France”), Charles Trenet died from a stroke in Créteil, France aged 87. Cimetière de l’ouest Narbonne, France

#RIP #OTD in 2003 country music singer (“Take this Job and Shove It”) songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, Johnny Paycheck died from emphysema at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University Medical Center, aged 64. Woodlawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Nashville, in a plot donated by George Jones

On this day in 2016, novelist Harper Lee died in her sleep in Monroeville, Alabama at the age of 89. Born Nelle Harper Lee on April 28, 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama. Perhaps best known for To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960. Immediately successful, it won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and has become a classic of modern American literature. In 2007 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her contribution to literature. She was also known for assisting her close friend Truman Capote in his research for the book In Cold Blood (1966). Capote was the basis for the character Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird.

The plot and characters of To Kill a Mockingbird are loosely based on Lee’s observations of her family and neighbors, as well as an event that occurred near her hometown in 1936, when she was 10 years old. The novel deals with the irrationality of adult attitudes towards race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s, as depicted through the eyes of two children, Scout and Dill.

Another novel, Go Set a Watchman, was written in the mid-1950s and published in July 2015 as a “sequel”, though it was later confirmed to be To Kill a Mockingbird‘s first draft.

Film producer Alan J. Pakula with Lee, who spent three weeks watching the filming of To Kill a Mockingbird

Lee being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, November 5, 2007

The Final Footprint

On February 20, her funeral was held at First United Methodist Church in Monroeville. The service was attended by close family and friends. She is interred in Hillcrest Cemetery in Monroeville. 

Harper Lee was portrayed by Catherine Keener in the film Capote (2005), by Sandra Bullock in the film Infamous (2006), and by Tracey Hoyt in the TV movie Scandalous Me: The Jacqueline Susann Story(1998). In the adaptation of Truman Capote’s novel Other Voices, Other Rooms (1995), the character of Idabel Thompkins, who was inspired by Capote’s memories of Lee as a child, was played by Aubrey Dollar.

#RIP #OTD in 2016 medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist (The Name of the Rose, Foucault’s Pendulum), cultural critic, political and social commentator, Umberto Eco died at his Milanese home of pancreatic cancer, aged 84. Cremated remains Cimitero Monumentale in Milano

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