A MART脥NEZ, HOST:
As we finish this year, let's listen to some of the musicians we lost in 2025. Sam Moore was half the R&B powerhouse Sam & Dave. He sang on smashes such as "Hold On, I'm Comin'," "I Thank You" and this one.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SOUL MAN")
SAM AND DAVE: (Singing) I'm a soul man. I'm a soul man.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We also lost the guitarist on that song, Steve Cropper. He defined the sound of Memphis soul with the Stax Records House Band. He appeared on hits by Otis Redding, Booker T. & The M.G.'s and Wilson Pickett.
MART脥NEZ: Sly Stone was one of the forefathers of funk. With the Family Stone, he played Woodstock and the Summer Of Soul. They scored three No. 1 songs, including this one.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "EVERYDAY PEOPLE")
SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE: (Singing) I am everyday people. Yeah, yeah.
MARTIN: Still a must at every cookout.
MART脥NEZ: Oh, yeah.
MARTIN: No relation to Sly, Angie Stone helped usher in the age of neo soul in the 2000s. She died in March.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WISH I DIDN'T MISS YOU")
ANGIE STONE: (Singing) I wish I didn't miss you anymore.
MART脥NEZ: A one-time partner of Angie Stone's, D'Angelo only released three albums in his lifetime, but he changed the game each time, and he was just 51.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "UNTITLED (HOW DOES IT FEEL)")
D'ANGELO: (Singing) How does it feel?
MART脥NEZ: And, Michel, I think he inspired millions of men to start doing sit-ups.
MARTIN: The last original member of The Band died in 2025. Garth Hudson played keyboards from their early days backing up Bob Dylan, all the way to their induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE WEIGHT")
THE BAND: (Singing) Take a load off, Fanny. Take a load for free.
MART脥NEZ: One of the leading women of the British Invasion, singer Marianne Faithfull, died at the beginning of the year at the age of 78.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AS TEARS GO BY")
MARIANNE FAITHFULL: (Singing) I sit and watch as tears go by.
MARTIN: As one-third of Peter, Paul And Mary, Peter Yarrow was a major part of the folk music revival of the 1960s.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PUFF, THE MAGIC DRAGON")
PETER PAUL AND MARY: (Singing) Oh, Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea.
MART脥NEZ: Musical satirist Tom Lehrer died this year at the age of 97. The Harvard educated mathematician found humor in just about any subject, including nuclear annihilation.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WE WILL ALL GO TOGETHER WHEN WE GO")
TOM LEHRER: (Singing) We will all go together when we go. All suffused with an incandescent glow.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: Another great who fused music and comedy, Alf Clausen was the longtime composer and arranger for "The Simpsons."
(SOUNDBITE OF THE SIMPSONS' "$PRINGFIELD (MEDLEY)")
MART脥NEZ: This next composer wrote many themes for film and television, but Lalo Schifrin will always be remembered for "Mission: Impossible."
(SOUNDBITE OF LALO SCHIFRIN'S "MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE")
MARTIN: We lost a great Broadway composer. Charles Strouse wrote the music for "Bye Bye Birdie" and "Annie." And by the way, good luck getting this out of your head for the rest of the day.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TOMORROW (FROM "ANNIE")")
ANDREA MCARDLE: (Singing) The sun will come out tomorrow. So you've got to hang on till tomorrow.
MART脥NEZ: I just got to play it on a loop to try and get it out. Now, Connie Francis scored more than a dozen Top 10 hits in the 1950s and the early '60s. Then she had a surprise resurgence earlier this year on TikTok. She was 87.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHO'S SORRY NOW")
CONNIE FRANCIS: (Singing) Who's sorry now?
MARTIN: We're listening to a few of the musicians who died in 2025. One of the most celebrated reggae musicians of all time, Jimmy Cliff, found international fame with the music from his film "The Harder They Come."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE HARDER THEY COME")
JIMMY CLIFF: (Singing) Oh, the harder they come, the harder they fall. One and all.
MART脥NEZ: We also lost two musicians who were vital parts of the 1970s rock scene in New York City. Drummer Clem Burke kept the beat for Blondie.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DREAMING")
BLONDIE: (Singing) We just keep on dreaming.
MART脥NEZ: And singer David Johansen inspired punk with the New York Dolls.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PERSONALITY CRISIS")
NEW YORK DOLLS: (Singing) About her personality crisis. You got it while it was hot.
MARTIN: Two legends of hard rock also passed recently. KISS guitarist Ace Frehley died just a couple of months before his band received a Kennedy Center Honor.
(SOUNDBITE OF KISS SONG, "ROCK AND ROLL ALL NITE")
MARTIN: And the Prince of Darkness, Ozzy Osbourne, died just weeks after his final live performance with his old band, Black Sabbath.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "IRON MAN")
BLACK SABBATH: (Singing) Iron man lives again.
MART脥NEZ: One of the producers who worked with Ozzy over the years also got this big sound out of Queen.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY")
QUEEN: (Singing) Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me, for me.
MART脥NEZ: I wish I could hit that note. Roy Thomas Baker produced many of Queen's albums, along with records by The Cars and Journey He died in April.
MARTIN: Two of the drummers who supported Miles Davis over the years left us. Al Foster joined him as he returned to recording in the 1980s, and the man behind Miles on the legendary B****es Brew album, Jack DeJohnette, died in October.
(SOUNDBITE OF MILES DAVIS' "SPANISH KEY")
MART脥NEZ: Now, you didn't hear a lot of flugelhorn on the pop charts in 1978, but Chuck Mangione scored a major hit "Feels So Good." He died at the age of 84.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHUCK MANGIONE'S "FEELS SO GOOD")
MARTIN: She was the first person to win the Grammy for Record of the Year in consecutive years, and she was the soundtrack to my young adulthood, Roberta Flack. She died in February.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "KILLING ME SOFTLY")
ROBERTA FLACK: (Singing) Killing me softly with his song. Killing me softly with his song, telling my whole life...
MART脥NEZ: We just learned yesterday about the death of a giant in the world of gospel music. Richard Smallwood led award-winning choirs and wrote timeless odes to worship. His work was covered by Whitney Houston and Destiny's Child.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TOTAL PRAISE (WITH VISION)")
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) You are the source of my strength.
MARTIN: And finally, the architect of one of the most influential bands in American rock history, Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CALIFORNIA GIRLS")
THE BEACH BOYS: (Singing) I wish they all could be California girls.
MARTIN: Wilson brought an orchestral approach to the production of their songs about girls, surf and sun. His genius reached its peak with Pet Sounds, often cited as one of the greatest albums of all time.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GOD ONLY KNOWS")
THE BEACH BOYS: (Singing) If you should ever leave me, well, life would still go on, believe me.
MART脥NEZ: And those were just a few of the musicians we lost in 2025, and we're truly sorry if we left off someone you loved.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GOD ONLY KNOWS")
THE BEACH BOYS: (Singing) God only knows what I'd be without you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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