The year the music died: What we lost, and what we gained in a traumatic 2016

WORCESTER - Niki Luparelli had the crowd from the spoken preamble that opens Prince's "Let's Go Crazy."

"Dearly beloved," she recites to the 70-person crowd, still filing into the Cove Music Hall from the cold Dec. 9 night. "We are gathered here today/To get through this thing called life. Electric word, 'life'/It means forever and that's a mighty long time/But I'm here to tell you/There's something else."

The crowd flows from the bar to the concert room, attention rapt.

" 'Cause in this life," says Luparelli, winding the section down, "Things are much harder than in the afterworld/In this life/You're on your own."

What followed was a several-hour set as Luparelli, her longtime collaborator Dan Burke and their band, the Gold Diggers paid homage to two of the iconic musicians who died in 2016, Prince and David Bowie. The set list was a staggeringly familiar litany of songs, including Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust," "Rebel, Rebel," "The Man Who Sold the World," "Fame," "Lazarus," "Space Oddity," "Suffragette City" and "Modern Love," Prince songs included "Cream," "Kiss," "1999" and "Raspberry Beret," and songs Prince wrote for other artists, including "Nothing Compares 2U," "Glamorous Life" and "I Feel 4U."

For the most part, the show is a celebratory affair, but at one point, Luparelli stops to drive home a point: That it's "important to keep this music alive."

Indeed, it's been a bad stretch for influential musicians, with 2016 claiming — in addition to Prince and Bowie — Leonard Cohen, Sharon Jones, Leon Russell, Merle Haggard, Phife Dawg, Denise "Vanity" Matthews, Maurice White, Paul Kantner, Glenn Frey, Greg Lake, Keith Emerson and George Michael. Some would argue that the list really begins in December 2015, with the deaths of Scott Weiland and Lemmy Kilmister, but any way you look at it, it's been a painful year for music fans.

"There were a lot of people whose input into the art isn't just in what they released," says Uxbridge musician Shane Hall. "They were influencers. Their influence is more expansive than their direct impact."

Hall, who is organizing a tribute concert for Leonard Cohen tentatively scheduled for late winter, says he "didn't experience the great sense of sorrow I thought I might," when Cohen died, noting that he's the sort of person who cries easily. He muses that he listened to Cohen talk about death so often that he might have subconsciously prepared himself, although he suspects the moment will hit him later. Conversely, Luparelli cries almost immediately when she discusses Bowie in an interview, adding that his death made her actually contemplate quitting music.

"The only reason I started singing was for a chance to meet David Bowie," she says, only half joking, in a conversation a few days after the tribute concert. Talking about Bowie and about celebrity deaths in general, she paraphrases something she read on the internet, that when we're mourning artists like these, we're really mourning what they brought out in ourselves. And the artists who died this year brought out a lot in a tremendous amount of people.

"When these folks go," says Hall, "it's usually after their relevance has expired, but in the cases of Cohen, Bowie and Prince … that relevance is still relevant."

Indeed, Bowie, Cohen and rapper Phife Dawg, of A Tribe Called Quest, not only remained relevant artists until the end, they all exited on exciting, staggeringly good albums. Bowie's "Blackstar," Cohen's "You Want It Darker" and Tribe's "We Got It from Here … Thank You 4 Your Service" rival any other work in what was, on the whole, a year filled with some legitimately stunning work.

Indeed, if this were a normal year, Beyonce's revolutionary "Lemonade" would be the lead of any music critic's year-end review. It was a brilliant album, both an immensely personal political statement and a taut survey of American music stylings. But other albums were worthy of attention this year, too, a diverse field that includes Frank Ocean's acclaimed "Blonde," Emily Wells' underrated "Promise" and De La Sol's "And The Anonymous Nobody," which, like Tribe's 2016 release, showed that the veteran hip-hop act was still at the top of its game.

"I can say that ATCQ and De La definitely influenced me by showing me that rap could be dope without necessarily having to be aggressive," says Hall. "At the time, I was a young kid really digging on Public Enemy and it made most things sound soft … but De La's 'Buhloone Mindstate' kind of changed that for me. The cleverness is what I loved, the way that they played with language."

Worcester rapper Kalibur Ramos agrees, saying, "A Tribe Called Quest is definitely one of my favorite groups. When you say old-school rap, they should pop up on your head … their whole era influenced me — real rap, real music, music with concept, real lyrics, style, rhythm, I was young as hell but always following my older siblings. I definitely got a good taste of that era, so with my work I try to bring back that old feel but keep it new at the same time."

If this year's bitter harvest proves anything, it's that the work of these artists reverberates far, and indeed, can be felt on a local level with local musicians, even if they're not overtly covering their work or aping their style.

"Every mixtape I made in the '80s had a David Bowie and Prince song on it," says Paul J. Vigeant Jr. of the Worcester band Soul of a Dark Machine. "I Inherited my love for King Crimson/ELP from my mom and my uncles. Greg Lake's voice had a way of grabbing you and holding your attention."

Others concur. Sean Ryder, of the Worcester band Backyard Swagger, says, "(Cohen) taught me that words could have more than meaning, they can also be filled with artistry. Prince taught me that musicianship is more than notes. It's feeling, hard work and dedication to performance. Bowie taught me that it's cooler to be different than to be the same as everyone else, even your old self. (Merle Haggard) taught me that three chords and the truth is only part of the equation."

Country musician Stan Matthews says, "The main thing that Prince showed me was that if you have a vision, an idea, then no one can give it justice other than you, the creator. You feel the emotions, no one else. There will always be others who are better singers, better musicians. But in terms of conveying that emotion, no one can do it better than one's self."

It's tempting to insinuate that the losses of 2016 have left contemporary music gutted, but that would be an overstatement. These artists' work lives on in the legions of artists they've inspired, and the influence they've asserted. But still, when it's an artist whose work is personally significant to you, that can be cold comfort.

"I felt like I wasn't done with Prince," says Worcester musician Elote Villanueva. "I wanted to hear what he had to say next … that emptiness of a teacher retiring. Now we have to make sense of it all and take the reins without anyone to coach us."

Bonus: 2016: An Incomplete Playlist For the Year the Music Died. (Warning, some songs contain adult language.)

Email Victor D. Infante at Victor.Infante@Telegram.com and follow him on Twitter @ocvictor.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: The year the music died: What we lost, and what we gained in a traumatic 2016