Obituaries

Announcer Gary Owens, 80, noted for his work on the late 1960s variety show Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, has passed away.

A diabetic, Owens struggled with the disease for many years.

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Another figure remembered by people of my generation has also died: Musician Sam Andrew, a guitarist and one of the founders of the San Francisco band Big Brother and the Holding Company, succumbed about ten weeks after suffering a heart attack.

Andrew was 73 and he died in his wife's arms.

His band was noted for featuring a screechy-voiced, disheveled woman named Janis Joplin who many regarded as a symbol of the 1960s. Some people hated her Southern Comfort-drenched vocalizing, some people loved it, while there are still others like yours truly who years ago loved her but now can't tolerate her at all.

If you like the sound of a cat with its tail caught in a door, you might like Janis Joplin.

The band continued on after she left it and after she left this earth in October of 1970.