In Memoriam 2015: Music”¦

Another year has come to an end. While 2015 was full of life in so many vivid ways — creatively, intensely, and tragically — it also presented its own set of challenges and obstacles to overcome in the new year. And as a year also brings, we also lost many shining figures in the music world, among other fields.

Here’s a look of some of those figures who touched our lives and will continue to do so always as we remember some of the key people in music, people who are legends, pioneers, luminaries, inspirations, and above all, timeless.

Legendary Runaways producer and Los Angeles rock legend Kim Fowley died today after a long battle with cancer, although no official cause of death has been released at this time, according to Rolling Stone. He was 75.

The son of actors, the Los Angeles, CA-born Fowley began his career in the music business in 1959 and spent the 1960s working with acts such as Paul Revere and the Raiders and Gene Vincent. His career as a solo artist yielded a minor hit when his third LP, 1968’s Outrageous, broke Billboard’s Top 200. Many credited Fowley with the advent of the raised lighter concert salute after he encouraged the crowd to do it while MCing John Lennon’s Toronto Rock and Roll Revival performance in 1969.

A lot of people counted out the gals from The Runaways when Kim Fowley’s manufactured girl group split entered in the late 70s. But those people had not taken notice of the considerable forces that are Joan Jett and Lita Ford. By 1984, singer/guitarist Jett had already established herself as the queen of a new generation of female rockers and lead guitarist Lita Ford was reinventing herself as a sultry heavy metal goddess who would give all of the male axe-slingers a run for their money throughout the golden age of the guitar hero.

Here below is Lita Ford with the official video for “Gotta Let Go,” the second single from her second solo album Dancing On The Edge.