Probably not well known on here but Australian motorsports legend Barry “Bo” Seton passed away aged 89 today. Won Bathurst in 65 and competed in 22 straight Bathurst races including one with his famous son Glenn. After retiring from driving he had stints building engines for various teams including Nissan and his sons Sierra’s.
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I doubt there’s too many Days of our Lives fans on Blitz but Patrick Muldoon has died of a heart attack. Only 57. He was also in the movie Starship Troopers and was in Melrose Place.
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I remember him. He was on something else too before his days of our lives gig.
Just saw you had mentioned Melrose place 
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Steve Winwood is a fairly well-known name, as a former member of Traffic. RIP to one of their other main songwriters, Dave Mason…
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Alan Osmond, oldest performing member of The Osmonds, also gone aged 76.
I had quite the teenage crush on his little sister Marie.
I’d have let you take her as a second wife…Mormon style…and I’m sure you’ll agree that’s big o’ me.
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James Valentine, ABC talkback radio star, dies aged 64 after cancer diagnosis
Veteran 702 ABC Sydney announcer James Valentine has died aged 64 using voluntary assisted dying at home two years after a cancer diagnosis.
The broadcaster hosted radio and television shows across the ABC for 30 years, most notably presenting the Afternoons radio show for more than 20 years.
Valentine retired from 702 ABC Sydney in February after 25 years with the station, citing the need to focus on his cancer treatment.
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He wrote some very elegant pieces for the ABC during his cancer battle.
I didn’t really know much of his career or him, but they were interesting reads which provided a lightness of touch when discussing a very dark topic. There is another one I can’t seem to find where he discusses the initial symptoms which led to a diagnosis (although that could have been written by someone else where he is quoted a lot, but I think he penned it).
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Fark Cancer.
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Also brings back the days of the afternoon show after school.
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In his pre-ABC career, James Valentine was a professional tenor sax player. Here’s a clip of The Models playing their hit tune, Hold On live in 1987. James Valentine appears on camera from around 2 minutes in.
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Thank you for sharing those. Worth the read.
RIP Rock Legend DAVE MASON
Dave Mason, the English guitarist, singer and songwriter whose fluid musicianship and instinct for collaboration helped define a generation of rock music, has died, leaving behind a catalog that bridged British psychedelia, American roots rock and the introspective singer-songwriter movement that followed in its wake. He was widely admired not only for his own work, but for the connective tissue he provided between some of the most important artists and recordings of the late 1960s and 1970s.
Born in Worcester, England, in 1946, Mason emerged in the ferment of the 1960s British rock explosion, but from the beginning he occupied a slightly different lane. Where many of his contemporaries chased volume or virtuosity, Mason pursued feel—melding American blues, English folk and melodic pop into something fluid and personal. That sensibility found its first major expression in Traffic, the group he co-founded in 1967 with Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi and Chris Wood. The band’s early work, including Mr. Fantasy, helped redefine what a rock ensemble could be—loose yet precise, pastoral yet experimental. Mason’s own “Hole in My Shoe,” which climbed to No. 2 in the U.K., revealed his gift for melody and narrative whimsy, even as it set him apart from the band’s more improvisational leanings.
Yet Mason’s relationship with Traffic was famously restless. That tension would define his early career. Mason drifted in and out of Traffic, his independence both a strength and a source of friction. Yet his songwriting—particularly the rock classic “Feelin’ Alright,” later immortalized by Joe Cocker—became one of the era’s most durable compositions. His relationship with the band may have been unsettled, but his contributions were foundational. While Winwood leaned toward jazz-inflected explorations, Mason favored concise songcraft rooted in folk and rock traditions. Despite these tensions, his imprint on Traffic’s formative sound remained indelible.
If Traffic established Mason’s voice, his work beyond the band revealed his reach. In 1968, he joined Jimi Hendrix during the sessions for Electric Ladyland, adding 12-string guitar to “All Along the Watchtower,” a recording that would become one of Hendrix’s defining statements. Mason later described the experience as singular, recalling the moment of sitting across from Hendrix and “laying down the track” as among the most vivid of his career. “Jimi created a space where anything could happen — you just had to be ready when it did.” It was a pattern that would repeat: Mason moving through the inner circles of rock’s greatest figures—The Rolling Stones, George Harrison, Eric Clapton—not as a star turn, but as a trusted presence who could elevate the music.
By the early 1970s, Mason had embarked on a solo career that would bring him his greatest commercial success. His 1970 album Alone Together signaled a turning point, both musically and visually, with its innovative packaging and warm, layered sound. Over the decade, he refined a style that blended introspection with accessibility, culminating in the 1977 album Let It Flow. Its hit single, “We Just Disagree,” became Mason’s signature song, a gentle yet emotionally resonant meditation on parting ways that climbed into the Top 20 on the Billboard charts and found a lasting place on radio playlists.
Mason’s solo work was marked by a quiet craftsmanship. He was not a flamboyant frontman, nor did he chase trends, but his songs carried an emotional clarity that resonated across audiences. “I’ve always just tried to write honestly,” he once said in an interview. “If it connects, it connects. If it doesn’t, you move on to the next one.”
His later years reflected that same restlessness. He briefly joined Fleetwood Mac in the 1990s, contributed to new recordings well into the 21st century, and continued touring until health issues forced him off the road in the mid-2020s. Even then, his connection to music remained intact; he was, as one family statement put it, devoted to “the music and the people he loved.”
Throughout his career, Mason remained a sought-after collaborator and sideman, working with artists across genres and generations. His adaptability allowed him to move between projects with ease, whether contributing guitar lines, songwriting or production insight. He was as comfortable on a festival stage as he was in a studio session, and his presence often elevated the work of those around him.
To many musicians, Mason represented a kind of ideal: a player’s player, respected for his taste, restraint and musical intelligence. He never sought the spotlight in the way some of his contemporaries did, yet his influence ran quietly through the era’s most important recordings. His career traced a path through the evolution of modern rock, from the experimental fervor of the 1960s to the more personal, reflective songwriting that followed.
Dave Mason’s music endures not through grand gestures, but through its consistency and humanity. In songs that explored love, separation and the passage of time, he offered listeners something both intimate and universal. As his voice fades from the stage, it remains preserved in recordings that continue to speak with clarity and grace. His songs never shouted for attention, but they stayed with you. And in the long arc of popular music, that quiet persistence may be the most enduring legacy of all.
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*Martin Scorcese likes this
Where does Be My Baby rank in terms of best songs of all-time?
It’s got to be right up there, right? It’s such a brilliant song.
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I can only think of E Street and that song.
For the West Australians. Bill Grayden, 105.
Kokoda veteran and MP, Menzies government, held his seat for 43 years till his retirement,
A small L liberal instrumental in the 1967 Referendum on Aboriginal citizenship.
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