response 101 of 106:

Jan 13 19:36 UTC 2005

Spencer Dryden, the drummer for the Jefferson Airplane through their
glory years, has died of cancer at the age of 66.  Dryden had had 
health problems for years and was nearly destitute.
 
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/01/13/BAGVGAPF1T1.DTL

response 103 of 106:

Feb 1 18:06 UTC 2005

Martyn Bennett died on Sunday, age 33, "following a long 
battle with Hodgkin's Lymphoma."   
 
Martyn's last album, GRIT, was a techno-folk masterpiece which 
was developed while he was recuperating at his parents' home, 
and listening to old traditional Scottish folk LPs.
GRIT was my pick for my favorite CD of 2003.
 
Here's an obituary from a Scottish newspaper:
http://news.scotsman.com/archive.cfm?id=118752005
 
Over the last five years, Martyn was probably the musician
whose new recordings I most eagerly looked forward to.  I knew that
this premature death was a possibility, but he had sounded pretty
good in the last round of interviews on BBC radio shows.

response 105 of 106:

Feb 1 18:54 UTC 2005

 I liked this odd scrap of info from his biography in the All Musig Guide:

 > He served as personal piper to the president of Tanzania during the
 > president's visit to Edinburgh.