[Deathwatch] George Melly, jazz singer, 80

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

Hard-drinking jazz legend dies
updated 6:10 a.m. EDT, Thu July 5, 2007

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Music/07/05/britain.jazz.ap/index.html

 LONDON, England (AP) -- George Melly, a flamboyant, gravel-voiced jazz
singer, critic and raconteur, died Thursday, his wife said. He was 80
years old.

George Melly is seen onstage at the Palace Theatre in Newark, England
in May of this year.

Though suffering from lung cancer and dementia, Melly continued
performing nearly until the end. He gave his last concert on June 10.
He died at home in London, Diana Melly said.

Melly was noted for loud suits, louder ties and the image he cultivated
of a hard-drinking throwback to the jazz age.

After his navy service in World War II, Melly relished the life of a
peripatetic musician. "Hard drinking and squalid digs, but absolutely
no regrets," he once recalled.

He gave up the musician's life in 1962 to concentrate on writing about
surrealist art and working as a jazz music and theater critic.

In 1974 he resumed his role as Good Time George and went back on the
road with John Chilton's Feetwarmers.

Melly is survived by his wife, his son Tom, his daughter Pandora, his
stepdaughter Candy and his four grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements were not immediately announced.

Many thanks to TheLenGuy for posting this obituary