Concert promoter Jon Stoll, whose West Palm Beach company put on shows in South Florida and nationwide, died at a local hospice on Saturday of complications that occurred during his long recuperation from a stroke and major surgery last summer. He was 54. Here's just one tribute to Stoll and his remarkable run as one of the big independents in concert promotion.

Update: Obituary posted here.

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Chad Butler, better known as Pimp C of the veteran Texas rap duo UGK, was found dead this morning in a Los Angeles hotel room. He was 33. UGK publicist Nancy Byron confirmed Butler's death in an e-mail to journalists and said a "formal statement" is forthcoming.

Details, as related in this article from Billboard.com, are sketchy. The Billboard brief says police found the rapper dead in the bed of a room at L.A.'s Mondrian Hotel after responding to a 911 call.

2007 was shaping up as the biggest year ever, in commercial terms, for Butler and his UGK partner, rapper Bernard "Bun B" Freeman. A new album, Underground Kingz, debuted at No. 1 -- a first for UGK -- and spawned a hit single, Int'l Players Anthem, featuring Outkast.

This writeup of the track focuses more on the cameo by Outkast's Andre 3000, but it's a smart summary of Anthem's appeal.

Before this year, the Port Arthur, Texas tandem had mostly lived up to its "Underground" moniker -- a rap act best known to other rappers, such as Jay-Z, who put them on his 1999 hit, Big Pimpin'. Butler was barely a teenager when he started collaborating with Freeman, and as UGK they helped give the "Dirty South" a sound and style long before that phrase came along to describe edgy, profane Southern rap.

Butler and Freeman cut several CDs and EPs from 1998 to 2002, including 1996's Ridin' Dirty, which caught Jay-Z's ear. UGK have also collaborated with Ludacris, Too Short, Goodie Mob's Big Gipp and members of Three 6 Mafia.

The five years between 2002's Side Hustles and Underground Kingz owed in part to Butler's conviction for assault. After his release from prison he put out a solo CD, 2006's Pimpalation, but according to Billboard his time behind bars had left him with physical and mental health problems that impaired his ability to tour and promote the music.

Yet Butler seemed to be on the rebound in 2007 with the high-flying return of UGK and a busy tour schedule that included Rock the Bells, a hip-hop festival this past August in Miami.

"We mourn the unexpected loss of Chad," Barry Weiss, CEO of Jive Records, UGK's label, said in a statement. "He was truly a thoughtful and kind-hearted person. He will be remembered for his talent and profound influence as a pioneer in bringing southern rap to the forefront."

Update: Here's the latest from UGK's publicist, with remarks from UGK manager Rick Martin.

Los Angeles, CA - Manager Rick Martin, who was on hand this morning to identify the body of client and dear friend Chad Butler aka Pimp C, offers this statement regarding today's tragic loss:

This morning saw the loss of a man that was not only a client, but a very dear friend at a time when he had the most to live for. He was my best friend and I will always love him.

Chad's tragic passing leaves behind mourners the world over, including his mother, wife and children whom Chad loved more than anything. An official cause of death has yet to be determined.

I was so very proud of Chad and the growth he has shown since his release from prison; as an artist and business man and as a person. As one half of the legendary Texas group UGK, Chad was finally seeing the results of the years of love and labor that he and Bun B have put in over the years, culminating in the tremendous success of their album, Underground Kingz. Chad was set to soar with not only a new solo deal on Jive Records, but a lucrative publishing deal, a new satellite radio show, several group projects and a national cologne endorsement. Chad had everything to live for, making his unexpected passing a travesty.

Right now, my number one concern is the well being and livelihood of his family who are the ones most deeply affected by this loss. All efforts will be made to ensure that they are properly cared for in this tragic time and beyond.

As Chad's friend and manager, and on behalf of his family and those closest to him, we ask that you, the press keep reports of his passing to tributes to his amazing contributions as an artist and wait for the facts surrounding his death to come to light. Please let us all remember Pimp C as the kind and warmhearted man and rap music pioneer that he was.

Thank you,

Rick Martin / FM2 Inc.

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AP says:

Evel Knievel and Kanye West have worked it out.

The 69-year-old iconic motorcycle daredevil said he and West met at his Clearwater condo recently. They settled a federal lawsuit over the use of Knievel’s trademarked image in a popular West music video.

Knievel sued West and his record company last year. He took issue with a 2006 music video for the song “Touch the Sky,” in which the rapper takes on the persona of “Evel Kanyevel” and tries to jump a rocket-powered motorcycle over a canyon.

Story here and video here.

UPDATE Dec. 4: Knievel, you know by now, died last Friday. He had settled one dispute. But another, older one lingers, and it occasioned this eye-catching lede:

Of all the bones Evel Knievel broke over the years, the costliest may have been the left arm of a PR man by the name of Shelly Saltman.

I was trying to find video of the excellent CBS Sunday Morning obit, narrated by Charles Osgood. No luck. But here's Knievel's almost-made-it jump at Caesar's Palace. I wouldn't call the wipeout a "failure," because that's not the correct word for any jump that didn't kill him. Knievel practically invented the concept of the motorcycle stuntman, and he pretty much invented himself.

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If any singer summed up the glitz, glory and unavoidably short run of L.A. metal in the '80s, it was Quiet Riot's Kevin Dubrow.

Known, or faulted, for abetting that scene, Quiet Riot became the first metal band to take an album, 1983's Metal Health, all the way to No. 1. How "metal" Quiet Riot actually was, might be subject to debate. Try drawing a straight line from Judas Priest to 3 Inches of Blood with Quiet Riot somewhere in the middle. It doesn't look right.

In any case Metal Health and a high-charting cover of Cum On Feel The Noize (#5 Billboard Hot 100), by British rock band Slade, made Dubrow's buzz-saw vocal style a household sound.

Dubrow sang loud, struck poses with relish and wore every spandex-anchored getup without apology. I seem to remember him reveling in his stature with an almost lordly air of entitlement. This failure of proportion earned him mockery even within the West Coast pop-metal playpen that begat Dokken, Poison, Ratt, Motley Crue and a pair of Ozzy Osbourne guitarists (Randy Rhoads and Jake E. Lee).

But the fortunes and the perceptions of Quiet Riot and its peers were intertwined. Grunge, Seattle's punk/metal hybrid, proved toxic to the whole lot. Those L.A. bands that didn't break up fell into a hitless routine of package tours. The city moved on to more exotic monsters of rock: Guns N Roses, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane's Addiction.

Pop metal's big moment looks more and more like a holiday, given metal's ever-heavier bent. But the glam hasn't totally worn off. Anyone playing the Guitar Hero and Rock Band video games is busting a few moves from the '80s air-guitar repertoire.

Some of the singing lessons stuck, too. Listen to The Darkness's One Way Ticket to Hell ... and Back, and you'll hear more than a little of the classic Dubrow power chorus.

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South African reggae singer Lucky Dube was shot and killed on Thursday night in Johannesburg, apparently by carjackers.

Story here.

Dube, 43, grew up in Apartheid South Africa and started out singing in a more traditional style, but embraced reggae in part for its social and political leanings. Not everything he wrote was big-picture. Divorce Party might have doubled as an inside joke on politics, but it also works fine as a sardonic look at separation.

Two of my favorite Dube songs have familiar titles, but they're not covers.

In Taxman, he sang:

I pay my lawyer to fight for my rights
And I pay my bodyguard to guard my body
There' s only one man I pay
But I don' t know what I'm paying for
I'm talking about the taxman

And in Respect:

Give love to those who give you love
Love to those who give you war
Give love those who hate you
Bless even those who curse you

Respect is a great combination of idioms: a steady reggae groove and lacy guitar fills in the classic Afro-pop style.

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UPDATE 10/22: Don Cohen died of lung cancer, not brain cancer as I wrote here and in an Oct. 6 obituary. (The error was repeated when this blog post was published Oct. 11 as an appreciation, in the print editions.) Although cancer of the brain was present, Cohen's death certificate lists lung cancer as the official cause, said Jamie Schwartz, Cohen's girlfriend and caregiver in his last weeks. My apologies for the error. Our print edition will also be publishing a correction to set the record straight.

A dean of the blues, music promoter Don Cohen died yesterday of inoperable brain cancer, barely a month after his diagnosis.

I never met Cohen in person. We spoke by telephone several times over the 11-plus years I've been at the Sun-Sentinel. The person on the other end of the line impressed me as a quiet, thoughtful man -- nothing like the stereotype of the fast-talking, showboating "promoter." I'd catch him at work sometimes as late as 1:30 in the morning (I thought I'd be leaving a voicemail), when he was deep into the orchestration and air-traffic control that went into putting on his annual music festival.

"Watching Don do what he did always amazed me," said his friend and fellow talent booker, Judy Blem.

Cohen, who died on his 55th birthday, bettered the lives and livelihoods of the musicians he championed. He made people who love jazz, blues, roots, funk and r&b very happy: They got to see all the great performers they could have hoped for because Cohen brought them here, either to his highly movable club, the Musicians Exchange, or his almost-as-mobile Riverwalk Blues & Music Festival.

He had a huge impact on me, as a writer learning on the job and just as a thrillseeking concertgoer. Riverwalk festivals are where I saw more great performers and standout live sets than I can count. Shemekia Copeland, Solomon Burke, Corey Harris with Henry Butler, Otis Taylor, "Blu" Stu Herman, Charlie Musselwhite.

The Iguanas, from New Orleans (and Austin, TX, post-Katrina), played last year's Riverwalk party on a stage under the Andrews Avenue bridge, next to the Downtowner saloon. It was one of the best concerts I've ever seen -- a garland of laid-back southwestern grooves, colored in with Basin Street brass. If ever there was a moment I should have found Cohen and shook his hand, that was it.

There will be a lot of testimonials to Cohen's work, to his passion, and the way he always kept South Florida humming to great music, and they'll all be true. It's difficult to overstate how important Cohen was to the development of a live music scene in South Florida over the last 30 years.

Here's a telling note I found posted in the comments section below his Sun-Sentinel obituary.

Don was a great guy. We first met him at the Musicians Exchange when he rented out studios for practice at $9 an hour. After practice he would invite us up to see who he booked for the night in the cafe'. It was all pretty cool, very local with name acts. I got to hang out with Mat "Guitar" Murphy and drink and talk about guitars.

Don was a real friend of the musician as well as one himself

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He thought he'd be running a roots-music club and in hindsight he sort of did. Hilly Kristal opened CBGB (short for country-bluegrass-blues) in a dingy lower Manhattan neighborhood. But instead of giving rural style a New York home, CBGB became the cradle of punk.

Kristal's death this week is a sad afternote to the closing of CBGB, which succumbed last fall to rising neighborhood rents and a failure of imagination on the part of people who designate historic landmarks.

The place certainly didn't look like the typical preservation project. It was a dump, but a dump of historic proportions. If seediness didn't liberate the musicians, it did let performers such as Patti Smith and the Ramones concentrate on their noisemaking. They didn't have to worry about offending patrons, neighbors or the owner. In Kristal they found somebody willing to listen way outside of his comfort zone. He enabled a movement that's given us scores of great bands through four decades.

Punk's spirit of raw expression and creation lives on in joints such as Churchill's Pub in Miami and Respectable Street in West Palm Beach. (What's going on with another West Palm punk club, Ray's Downtown Blues, is a bit of a mystery to me right now. I was told Ray's had closed, but this page shows bookings for tomorrow and next week.)

CBGB showed the way. The roots of punk wind all the way back to Kristal and his pioneering place.

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