Ivan Rebroff

Ivan Rebroff, singer, was born in Berlin on July 31, 1931. He died of cancer on February 27, 2008, aged 76

Ivan Rebroff was a German lad who reinvented himself as a Russian singer. It proved one of the most successful inventions of the musical theatre and brought Rebroff life-long success and worldwide renown.

Born Hans-Rolf Rippert, Rebroff — whose voice spanned four and a half octaves and ranged from the high soprano to the deepest bass — rejected the opera stage and its disciplines as too restricting. So he claimed Russian ancestry, took on a Russian name, and made himself the master of Russian folk music, a repertoire that with great flair and diligence he dug out and developed, giving more than 6,000 live concerts and opera performances in his career. He leaves a musical legacy of more than 60 CDs, every one of which topped the charts and became a bestseller.

Schoolboy Cleve

Schoolboy Cleve, harmonica player and guitarist, was born on June 10, 1925. He died on February 5, 2008, aged 82

Schoolboy Cleve was one of the few surviving performers of “swamp blues”. Along with other Louisiana bluesmen such as Lightnin’ Slim, Lazy Lester and Slim Harpo, he cut tracks in the 1950s but unlike many of his fellow artists he was able to sustain his career.

Cleveland White was born in East Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and took to music as a boy. He learnt to play harmonica backwards, until the bluesman Sonny Boy Williamson showed him how to play it correctly. His new-found skill led to him gaining a nickname that he proudly carried all his life. “People used to say: ‘Have you heard that schooboy?’.” After military service in the war, Cleve returned to Baton Rouge where he got a day job, but started playing at night and at weekends. Playing harmonica, guitar and using a board to stamp his foot, he became almost a one-man blues band, appearing at clubs around Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas.

His musical break came in the mid-1950s when he recorded for Jay Miller as a solo artist and as a backing musician for the guitarist Lightnin’ Slim. In the 1960s he moved to San Francisco where a meeting with a disc jockey, Tom Mazzolini, led him to perform regularly at the San Francisco Blues Festival. In 1972 he also recorded again for the Blues Connoisseur label. In later years he formed his own record company, Cherrie Records, and in 2006 released a retrospective collection called South to West: Iron and Gold.

George Hill

George Hill, hospitality businessman, was born on September 25, 1925. He died on March 22, 2008, aged 82

George Hill was ran the hotels and catering operations of British Transport and later became chairman of Bass when it bought the Holiday Inn and InterContinental Hotel chains.

In 1943-46 he was employed in the Royal Marines, and served in Germany after the war. After training as an accountant he went to work for the Distillers Company, where he learnt about corporate mergers and acquisitions. After working there from 1952 to 1966 he worked briefly at BP Chemicals, moving to become chief executive and later chairman of British Transport Hotels in 1970. There he oversaw hotels ranging from historic establishments such as Gleneagles to small regional places. In charge of catering on trains and at stations, he put an end to the famous BR sandwich with curled-up edges. Having taken control at the start of Mrs Thatcher’s privatisation drive, he also gained a thorough grasp of the differences between the public and private sector management.

He took his experience of hotel management to Bass UK where he became chairman in 1978. The brewers took him on to manage the company’s recent acquisitions of the Holiday Inn and InterContinental chains. This went on to become the predominant business: the company sold its brewing assets and changed its name to Six Continents, now in its current incarnation as the Inter-Continental Hotel Group.