Obit: original Limeliter Alex Hassilev (1932-2024)

Subject: Obit: Alex Hassilev, original Limeliter
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 25 Apr 24 - 02:01 PM

Alex Hassilev, the last living member of the original Limeliters, has died.
https://neptunesociety.com/obituaries/sherman-oaks-ca/alex-hassilev-11780652

Subject: RE: Obit: Alex Hassilev, original Limeliter
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Apr 24 - 02:12 PM

Not a lot of information to go on - if you get any actual obits, please share them.

Subject: RE: Obit: original Limeliter Alex Hassilev (1932-2024)
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 25 Apr 24 - 05:09 PM

Alex Hassilev (July 11, 1932 – April 21, 2024).

Subject: RE: Obit: original Limeliter Alex Hassilev (1932-2024)
From: keberoxu
Date: 26 Apr 24 - 07:33 PM

Can't find an obituary. However, there is a page devoted to Alex Hassilev at the webpage for
the Neptune Society.

Subject: RE: Obit: original Limeliter Alex Hassilev (1932-2024)
From: BrooklynJay
Date: 29 Apr 24 - 02:30 AM

Alex Hassliev can be seen, pre-Limeliters, in the 1959 cult film, A Bucket of Blood. His part is very brief, but he sings a little bit of Ewan MacColl's Go Down You Murderers accompanying himself on guitar.

A Bucket of Blood on YouTube

He can be seen starting at 28:36.

Alex Hassilev was one of my musical heroes, from the day my parents brought home The Limeliters' album Tonight In Person back when I was quite young. I still have all their original vinyl LP's.

I still do a few of their songs. In fact, my knowledge of their version of Have Some Madeira, M'dear almost got me married back in the late 1970's! (But that's another story.)

R.I.P. Alex Hassilev.

Subject: RE: Obit: original Limeliter Alex Hassilev (1932-2024)
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 29 Apr 24 - 10:47 AM

Another good man gone. Rest in peace Alex.

I have added Alex to the "In Memoriam" thread and send my condolences to all who know and love him.

Subject: RE: Obit: original Limeliter Alex Hassilev (1932-2024)
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 01 May 24 - 11:56 AM

LA Times obit: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2024-04-30/alex-hassilev-limeliters-dies

The obituarist is also the author of a new (January 2024) Limeliters bio, "Makin' a Joyful Noise: The Lives and Times of the (Slightly) Fabulous Limeliters."

Subject: RE: Obit: original Limeliter Alex Hassilev (1932-2024)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 May 24 - 12:50 PM

Here's that Los Angeles Times obit: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2024-04-30/alex-hassilev-limeliters-dies

Alex Hassilev, last original member of the ’60s folk trio the Limeliters, dies at 91
By Richard S. Ginell
April 30, 2024

Alex Hassilev, the singing, songwriting, guitar and banjo virtuoso who was the last surviving original member of 1960s folk trio the Limeliters, died of cancer April 21 at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank. He was 91.

Hassilev was the youngest member of the Limeliters, whose other original members were bassist and comic spokesman Lou Gottlieb (1923-1996) and star tenor Glenn Yarbrough (1930-2016). The band was second only to the Kingston Trio in its popularity during the peak years of the American urban folk music boom of the late 1950s and early ’60s.

After becoming a hit act at San Francisco’s fabled hungry i nightclub only two months after their formation in 1959, the Limeliters became an inescapable presence in mass media. They recorded 13 albums, appeared on television and toured as many as 310 days out of the year. Their most enduring album, “Through Children’s Eyes,” was popular among generations of children and their parents.

Hassilev’s powerful chops on banjo and guitar gave the group’s music much of its rhythmic drive, and his expertise in foreign languages — particularly in French, Portuguese and Russian — made it possible to add songs from outside American folk music to the group’s repertoire. Tall, debonair and handsome, Hassilev also was the sex symbol of the trio.

Hassilev was born in Paris on July 11, 1932, to Russian emigré parents Leonide and Tamara Hassilev. Like his colleagues in the Limeliters, he was an only child — and to one another the three musicians were probably the closest thing to brothers they ever had.

The Hassilevs were Jewish and left Paris for New York City in 1939 ahead of the Nazi occupation of France during World War II, and in Manhattan Leonide Hassilev continued his career as a civil engineer specializing in hydroelectric projects. Hassilev had showed early brilliance as a child, picking up new languages with ease and eventually speaking six fluently. When he came to America, he found that he was ahead of his classmates.

“I breezed through school, except that I was lousy at shop,” he said in one of the interviews that eventually resulted in my recent biography of the band’s core trio, “Makin’ a Joyful Noise: The Lives and Times of the (Slightly) Fabulous Limeliters.” “I was good at everything in those days because I had this tremendous background from my European days, where they teach at a higher level.”

Hassilev’s musical background was mainly in the classical field, although he knew some Russian folk songs that his parents brought over as well as some Brazilian and French songs. He said that he didn’t discover American folk music until his early 20s, when he was stationed in England after being drafted into the Army.

A chance listening to the Weavers’ recording of “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine” on the radio electrified him.

“I thought, goddamn, that’s the greatest thing I ever heard, and it made such an impression on me that it kindled my interest in American folk music,” he said during an interview in 1989. “At the time, I didn’t know any songs in English.”

Hassilev attended Harvard for a year but, dissatisfied with the Ivy League atmosphere, he transferred to the University of Chicago with the idea of going into the diplomatic corps. The lure of the theater eventually won out, and he enrolled at New York’s Neighborhood Playhouse, where he studied with Sanford Meisner and Martha Graham. Upon graduation, he looked for work as an actor while participating in the folk music scene in Greenwich Village, where he met Yarbrough at a party.

Eventually, Yarbrough asked Hassilev to join him as a co-owner and performer at an Aspen, Colo., nightclub called the Limelite, forming a trio with singer-actor Marilyn Child. The two men also sang together at a small club in Hollywood called the Cosmo Alley, and it was there in 1959 that Gottlieb — then trying to sell arrangements to the Kingston Trio — heard and liked their sound.

At first Gottlieb simply wanted them to help him make demo tapes for the Kingstons to learn songs, but Hassilev and Yarbrough countered with an offer to work up an act of their own. Gottlieb agreed and got hungry i owner Enrico Banducci to offer the new trio of Gottlieb, Hassilev and Yarbrough a gig there, sight unseen and unheard.

Banducci’s gamble paid off big-time. Within days after their opening, the Limeliters were selling out the club and were besieged with offers from major record companies eager to cash in on the folk boom. After making a modestly selling album for Elektra, the group signed with RCA Victor. Their first RCA album, “Tonight: In Person,” recorded live at the Ash Grove in Los Angeles, rose to No. 5 on the charts. Commercials for Folger’s coffee, L&M cigarettes, Ford Motor Co. and Coca-Cola followed, which irked folk purists but gave the group immense exposure.

The three Limeliters were an intelligent and volatile set of personalities armed with formidable debating skills, and they regularly argued about repertoire, money and even the clothes they wore onstage.

“They were breaking up every day they were in existence,” their then-manager Ken Kragen recalled. Their touring schedule increased the tensions, and a December 1962 plane crash near Provo, Utah — from which they were lucky to survive with only minor injuries — contributed to their first breakup. Yarbrough left the group in July 1963 to go solo; Hassilev and Gottlieb continued for two years as a recording act to fulfill their RCA Victor contract, with Ernie Sheldon replacing Yarbrough.

Uncertain as to what to do next, Hassilev tried a solo singing career but gave up after two unsuccessful albums and an aborted nightclub gig. He turned to acting, landing a prominent role as a Russian-speaking sailor in the Norman Jewison Cold War comedy “The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming,” as well as a guest shot on TV’s “Get Smart.” He became interested in producing records, founding an early home recording studio that at its peak operated around the clock in his basement in West Hollywood, near the Sunset Strip.

His studio was one of the first to have a Moog synthesizer — well before the Beatles, the Monkees and other pop bands discovered the instrument. He and Mort Garson used the Moog to help create a moderate-sized hit album, “The Zodiac: Cosmic Sounds.” As a producer, Hassilev also managed to get Gottlieb and Yarbrough to record a period-pop-flavored Limeliters reunion album, “Time to Gather Seeds,” in 1968.

Eventually, Hassilev tired of running the studio and wound down his schedule. When the chance came to reunite the Limeliters as a part-time touring act in 1972, Hassilev, who now solely owned the rights to the group’s name, jumped at the chance. The old vocal chemistry was still there; the show drew highly positive reviews and big crowds. But the folk boom had long since deflated, and the Limeliters never could attract the same level of attention from record companies.

Eventually Yarbrough grew restless, leaving the trio in 1977 and returning in 1980, only to depart again after a few months of touring in which the old group tensions arose again. Hassilev, now thoroughly in charge, kept the Limeliters going, replacing Yarbrough with tenors Red Grammer in the 1980s and Rick Dougherty in the 1990s, experimenting with country music before doubling back to their folk base.

When Gottlieb died suddenly in 1996, Hassilev replaced him with Bill Zorn. That edition of the Limeliters lasted until 2002, when Hassilev developed bladder cancer and had to leave the road. When he recovered, a legal dispute blew apart that edition of the trio, but Hassilev kept the Limeliters going, teaming up with Andy Corwin and Mack Bailey.

Hassilev retired in 2006, leaving the leadership of the touring Limeliters to Corwin while still owning the group’s name. Under Corwin, the Limeliters, with various changes in personnel, remain active to this day.

In retirement, Hassilev moved from West Hollywood to North Hollywood, where he spent hours and hours editing and resequencing prospective albums of his work alone and with the trio, as well as doting upon his five dogs. Though increasingly physically immobile in his last decade, Hassilev remained sharp mentally, growing conservative in his politics and ready to debate his liberal friends. Even at 90, he could dominate a room with his bass-baritone voice and a warmth that could smooth over tension.

Hassilev’s survivors include his second wife, Gladys; his son from his first marriage to Ginger Stagner, David; two grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Subject: RE: Obit: original Limeliter Alex Hassilev (1932-2024)
From: GUEST
Date: 04 May 24 - 10:28 AM

Thanks for posting this, Joe...!

Subject: RE: Obit: original Limeliter Alex Hassilev (1932-2024)
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 05 May 24 - 07:44 PM

OBITUARY

Alex Hassilev

JULY 11, 1932 – APRIL 21, 2024

Alex Hassilev, age 91, of North Hollywood, California passed away on Sunday, April 21, 2024.BornJuly 11, 1932
Paris, FranceDiedApril 21, 2024 (aged 91)
Alex Hassilev (July 11, 1932 – April 21, 2024) was an American folk musician who was one of the founding members of the group The Limeliters. Educated at Harvard and the University of Chicago, he was also an actor with a number of film and television appearances to his credit. As a musician he played the guitar and the banjo and was fluent in several languages. After retiring from the Limeliters, Hassilev remained active in the field of record production. He died on April 21, 2024, at the age of 91.[

Of Russian heritage, Hassilev was born in France, but educated at the University of Chicago and Harvard. He spoke fluent French, Portuguese, Spanish and Russian and "could sing in over a dozen languages".[2] After a tour of duty in the U.S. Army, Hassilev did some acting and was credited with a role as singer-guitarist in the 1959 movie A Bucket of Blood.[3] 

Spouse

Ginger Diane StagnerJanuary 22, 1960 - November 1, 1963 (divorced, 1 child)
His wife is Ginger Diane Stagner (22 January 1960 - 1 November 1963) ( divorced) ( 1 child)


Between 1961 and 1963, the Limeliters made many appearances on television, recorded several albums and toured exhaustively.[6] Early in the career of the Limeliters, Hassilev said that the group didn't perform "just any old folk songs ... [but the kind] ... that might be looked on as a form of group therapy for unashamed eggheads." In the same article, however, he did confirm that the Limeliters were "collectors of authentic folk music ... [maintaining] ... that the real function of the folk song is a social function; serving as a comment, as a kind of group reflection on events".[7]

The original group did get back together temporarily to record an album, Time to Gather Seeds in 1966.





In the late 1950s, Hassilev joined Glenn Yarbrough as a lessee of a club in Aspen, Colorado, called the Limelite, and later the two performed regularly.


The original Limeliters (Lou Gottlieb, Alex Hassilev and Glenn Yarbrough) had numerous reunion tours throughout the 1970s. In the early 1980s, Alex and Lou wanted to keep the Limeliters together on a more full-time basis. They brought on tenor Red Grammer, who stayed with the Limeliters for the next 10 years.

1963

When the Limeliters first broke up at the height of their fame in 1963, Alex Hassilev turned to acting and operating a recording studio in his home, producing records for a variety of other artists as well as the Limeliters. He appeared in the 1966 movie The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming as Hrushevsky, a Soviet sailor. For over thirty years he has been a successful record producer and songwriter, and today he continues to produce many of the Limeliters recordings.

Harvested from IMDB - April 27, 2024.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Cosmo Alley - search will take you down a fascinating "rabbit hole."