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Larry Levine, regular engineer for Phil Spector and Eddie Cochran, occasional engineer for Brian Wilson and Herb Alpert, died at the age of 80. Idolator passed me through to a good obit at All About Jazz and a nice interview with Levine at CNN from 5 years ago. Levine was one of those engineers who took their job to a level beyond being just a technician, working hard to make the improbable and difficult-to-capture-on-vinyl sounds that their genius bosses were demanding (Geoff Emerick's recent memoir about his career, primarily with The Beatles from Revolver onward, does a good job of explaining just what someone like Levine or Emerick does, and why they are so crucial to good records).
Also now gone, the great Will Elder, 86, one of the original artists on the Mad comic book, and probably the best interpreter of Harvey Kurtzman's vision for that book (and other, later work, though I'd rather like to forget Little Annie Fanny). The master of what came to be known as the "chicken-fat" school of cartooning (beloved first by the French nouvelle vague filmmakers, some of whom deliberately copied Elder's cramming of offhanded details and jokes throughout the frame in their films), a good obit is here in The Comics Reporter, and he is remembered by writer/comic book historian Mark Evanier HERE, and in two blogs with appropriate names, Edwin Hunter's Chicken Fat and Bhob Stewart's POTRZEBIE (Bhob also reproduces a classic Elder splash panel - for "Restaurant!" - in large form HERE).
Some of my favorite Elder work for Mad can be found online thanks to Gatochy's Blog, including "The Hound of the Basketballs" and "Dragged Net." I wish I could find "Starchie," or "Ping Pong!" or "Mickey Rodent!" or "Howdy Dooit!" somewhere on line to pass on to you, but here's all of "Restaurant!" as well, and you can see a nice collection of Elder pages at The Electronic Almanac of Dr. Derek Wisdom, Metaphysician.
RIP. HOO-HAH!
