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Dearly Departed: A Celebration of Excellence Vol. 1

Thirty-five tracks by artists who are no longer with us, chosen to celebrate rather than to mourn. A memorial that swings.

A celebration, not a wake

The framing matters. A playlist of dead musicians could easily be maudlin; this one opens with James Brown's "Get On The Good Foot", which sets the terms immediately. The selections are chosen for what these artists did rather than for how they left, and the sequencing moves between eras and genres without treating any death as more significant than another.

It also does something quietly valuable: it includes people whose deaths went largely unremarked outside their own communities alongside the household names.

What to listen for

The giants are here handled lightly. Marvin Gaye's "If I Should Die Tonight," Prince's "The Beautiful Ones," Michael Jackson's "Stranger in Moscow" — note that none of these are the obvious choices, and "Stranger in Moscow" in particular is one of the loneliest records he made.

Phyllis Hyman's "You Know How to Love Me" is the one to sit with. Hyman was one of the great voices of her generation, struggled with bipolar disorder, and died by suicide in 1995. The song is joyful; the context is not.

Billy Paul's "Me and Mrs. Jones" and Luther Vandross's "Don't You Know That?" represent Philadelphia and New York soul respectively.

Maurice White's "I Need You" is the Earth, Wind & Fire founder's solo work, rarely heard. James Ingram's "Baby Be Mine" and Irene Cara's "Out Here On My Own" are both from artists whose deaths prompted a wave of belated appreciation.

The deep cuts are the point of a playlist like this. Ephraim Lewis's "Drowning in Your Eyes" — a British singer who released one album and died in 1994 at twenty-six, in circumstances still disputed — is the most obscure and most affecting inclusion. Deon Estus's "Heaven Help Me" (the Wham! bassist, with George Michael on backing vocals) and Andrea Martin's "Baby Can I Hold You" are similar recoveries.

Amy Winehouse appears with Nas on "Cherry Wine," and Slum Village's "Climax" instrumental stands in for J Dilla.

Go deeper

Phyllis Hyman deserves proper investigation — Living All Alone is a devastating album and she is one of the most underrated singers in soul.

Ephraim Lewis's Skin (1992) is worth finding for anyone interested in what British soul might have become.

And Andrea Martin was a formidable songwriter as well as a performer — she wrote "Before You Walk Out of My Life" for Monica and "Don't Let Go" for En Vogue.

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