We remember them ...

During the current Grammy Award, I was surprised to learn of the passing away of so many of my favourite groups or singers last year that I would now like to pay tribute to three of them who have been much endeared by me for many years, either in playing my guitar or singing their songs.

The first is Peter, Paul and Mary. The folksy trio that iconised the sixties as one of the most popular group that ever existed during that period. It was the time of hippies, flower people, anti-establishments, campus riots and the Vietnam War. This group gave us hits such as "Blowing in the wind", "Where have all the flowers gone", "Lemon Tree" and many others. On September 16 2009, Mary Travers, the female singer in the group, passed away from leukemia, at the age of 72.

If you don't know the song, well just sing along [lyrics provided on video] to "Where have all the flowers gone".

In the 60s, whenever schoolboys wished to form guitar groups, they had a choice of either playing cover versions of hits by The Ventures (American) or The Shadows (English). I chose the latter although we also included The Ventures pieces in our repertoire. Tunes like "Walk Don't Run", "Perfidia", "Meet Mr Callaghan", "Bulldog" and "Guitar Twist" were the favourites during that time. On June 14 2009, we saw the passing of Bob Bogle, the lead guitarist of the group. Bob passed away on June 14 2009 from non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. He was 76. Bob, thanks for the music.

In later years, the group hit the charts with that ever popular TV theme, Hawaii Five-O.

Another favourite artiste of mine who had also passed on was the soft rock singer, Dan Seals who in the late 70s created hits with John Ford Corley such as "Love is the answer" and "I really love to see you tonight". Dan died on March 25 2009 from mantle cell lymphoma. He was 61.

Let's listen to "Love is the answer" again.