Vince Welnick, who took over as the Grateful Dead's keyboard player in 1990 after a succession of predecessors met untimely deaths, has died at the age of 55.
"Vince passed from this earth on June 2, 2006 ... after a decade of battling tragedy while creating beauty and light around him," an announcement on his Web site said. It did not give a cause of death.
The San Jose Mercury News said he died in a hospital on Friday after being taken from his home in Forestville, California, and it quoted a person at his home as saying "it looks like he took his own life."
Welnick had previously spoken of a deep depression after Jerry Garcia, founding guitarist of the iconic psychedelic rock band, died in 1995 and the group disbanded.
Welnick is the fourth keyboard player for the band to have died, and his Web site referred to the position as a "particularly doomed spot."
He once told an interviewer, "A lot of people ask about that and my stock answer is that I am aware of the fact that you could die doing this job, but I was somewhat dying of boredom before the job came up so I thought I'd take my chances."
Originally a member of the 1970s rock band The Tubes, Welnick joined the Grateful Dead after longest-serving keyboard player Brent Mydland died in 1990 of a drug overdose.
Previously, pianist Keith Godchaux died in a car accident in 1980, a year after he left the band, and founding vocalist and keyboard player Ron "Pigpen" McKernan died in 1973 of a gastrointestinal hemorrhage.
In an extension of the band's "curse of the keyboard player," Scott Larned, cofounder and keyboard player for the nationally-touring Grateful Dead tribute band Dark Star Orchestra, died last year of a heart attack.
But life goes on in the music industry, especially for Taylor Hicks. The gray-haired crooner has taken step two on his American Idol-fueled career, signing the record contract that comes with winning the hit show.
Hicks inked a pact with music mogul Clive Davis in conjunction with 19 Recordings Unlimited, the label managed by AI creator Simon Fuller.
The 29-year-old Alabama native's recording of two songs -- Do I Make You Proud, which he performed in the show's finale, and a soulful cover of the Doobie Brothers classic Takin' It to the Streets -- will be released in stores and through digital outlets on June 13.
With Davis' guidance, Hicks is expected to release a full-length album later this year.
In a recent interview, Davis, who has molded the careers of previous Idol winners, said he thinks Hicks has charisma and a unique singing style that will help him establish his pop audience.
"He definitely has his own sound," Davis said. "He does have that gift, you know who it is when you hear him."
While Hicks had to earn his fame, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie didn't. And they haven't been wearing it well.
Those hoping that the new season of television series The Simple Life will supply the answer to what is really behind their infamous feud are going to be disappointed -- but the former friends do toss a few dishy darts at one another.
The reality-style series, which shows how inept the two "celebutantes" can be in everyday situations, like when it comes to doing real work, returned Sunday night on US cable television.
Hilton characterizes the two as ``complete opposites.''
"I'm the nice one, she's the evil one," the baby-voiced blonde says. "Some people change when they think they're a star or something and some people stay the same. I've always been the same and she's definitely not."
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