RIP Edwardsville's Morris Bradshaw and others

The southern Illinois high school I attended has a pretty lengthy roster of students who found sports fame at higher levels, and Morris Bradshaw, who has passed away at the age of 72, is one of the biggest stars ever to graduate from Edwardsville High School. As a Tiger, his 1,845 yards rushing was the most in school history at the time of his graduation.

Bradshaw would go on to form a fearsome threesome of wide receivers on the scary Oakland Raiders teams of the 1970s—alongside Cliff Branch and Fred Biletnikoff. His biggest year was 1978, when he caught 40 passes for 552 yards and 2 touchdowns. That also happened to be one of the Raiders’ worst seasons of that decade—largely because quarterback Ken Stabler had an off year and Jack Tatum’s preseason paralyzing of New England’s Darryl Stingley cast a dark cloud. Despite that year, Bradshaw won Super Bowls in 1976 and 1980 before retiring and working in the Raiders front office for nearly 30 years.

Brenton Wood has passed away at 83. He was one of those slinky soul singers who rode under the radar most of the time, but if you haven’t heard his stuff, his minor hits “The Oogum Boogum Song,” “Gimme Little Sign,” and others are awesome little love grooves. Growing up in L.A., Wood didn’t have a TV at home but would watch a guy playing a piano in a nearby park. He was a big star in the Latino community but eventually found another round of moderate success when “Oogum” appeared in Cameron Crowe’s movie Almost Famous.

Wayne Osmond, another musician for an earlier era, passed away at 73 because of complications from a stroke. Osmond was the older brother who was mostly behind the scenes on one of my childhood obsessions, The Donny & Marie Show. I even got Donny & Marie dolls and their accompanying studio set when I was seven. Before that, Donny and Wayne had hit it big with their other brothers as a kind of Mormon version of the Jackson 5, especially with the #1 hit “One Bad Apple.”

Peter Yarrow adds to a bad month for old-time musicians. The singer and guitarist for Peter, Paul and Mary passed away at 86 from bladder cancer. The group’s songs were mostly folk like “Puff the Magic Dragon,” but they covered John Denver’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” which borders more on pop and is incidentally one of my favorite songs to sing and play on guitar. They had 12 Top 40 hits, with six of them breaking into the top 10 and “Jet Plane” going to #1.

And finally, Sam Moore of Sam & Dave passed away at 89. “Soul Man” was their biggest hit and they provided Nashville’s less-polished answer to the highly produced stuff happening at the time in Detroit with Motown Records.