Passing the scene

So many rock-era icons have died within the past few years that fans have grown accustomed to waking up to news of another one’s passing.

Still, the death on Jan. 15 of the Cranberries’ 46-year-old lead singer Dolores O’Riordan came as a surprise. Although their hit-making days were behind them, the Cranberries still occasionally performed and recorded, releasing an album of original material in 2012 (Roses) and an album comprising unplugged versions of their greatest hits last year (Something Else).

O’Riordan’s strongly Irish-accented voice was something of an acquired taste. On lissome pop numbers such as “Dreams” and “Linger,” it floated and darted with avian grace. But it could also morph into a feral snarl that detracted from what she had to say even when what she had to say was worth saying.

Authorities have said that the cause of O’Riordan’s death might not be revealed for months, leaving fans to wonder whether her struggles with chronic back pain and bipolar disorder might have played a role.

ON THE SAME DAY that O'Riordan died, the 74-year-old gospel choirmaster and singer Edwin Hawkins succumbed to pancreatic cancer. In 1969, his rousing arrangement of the 18th-century hymn “Oh Happy Day” became a soul-gospel standard and made his Northern California State Youth Choir of the Church of God in Christ—rechristened the Edwin Hawkins Singers—overnight sensations.

Technically, the Singers were one-hit wonders, although they received co-billing with Melanie in 1970 on some copies of her Top 10 hit “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain).” But while none of the albums they recorded in the aftermath of “Oh Happy Day” returned them to the charts or evinced aesthetic development, the more thoughtfully sequenced of their many best-ofs reveal a richness in their piano-driven, vocal-powerhouse approach to proclaiming the Good News that still has the capacity to edify and inspire.

ON JAN. 23, prostate cancer claimed another one-hit wonder, the 78-year-old South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela, whose slinky pop-jazz instrumental “Grazing in the Grass” hit No. 1 on both the pop and the R&B charts 50 years ago.

Like “Oh Happy Day,” the song has endured, both in its original version (as a staple of oldies and easy-listening radio) and in the versions of the many musicians who’ve covered it. And like Hawkins, Masekela recorded prolifically despite the elusiveness of a follow-up smash.

He eventually incorporated world-music elements into his sound and became a musical mouthpiece for anti-apartheid and Afrocentric sensibilities. On his final album, No Borders (2016), Masekela went for what he called an “international, diaspora kind of feel,” which is certainly one way of describing what he and his various guests (Oliver Mtukudzi, Themba Mokoena, J’Something, Dice Makgothi) came up with.

ON JAN. 4, the longtime Moody Blues flautist Ray Thomas died after a lengthy battle with prostate cancer.

Thomas, who retired in 2002, didn’t write or sing-lead on any of the band’s hits. But from 1965’s The Magnificent Moodies to 1999’s Strange Times, he sang lead on over 20 Moody Blues album cuts, most of which he wrote and at least one of which, “Legend of a Mind” (best known for the refrain “Timothy Leary’s dead”), has achieved classic status among the group’s many fans.

It comes as some comfort to know that, several weeks before his death, Thomas learned that he and his fellow Moodies had finally been selected for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The honor was long overdue.