_via Questlove on Instagram_

Anthony Bourdain, the chef, author, television host, ambassador and all-around rock star of the food world who brought millions of viewers to distant locations to learn about food and culture via his shows like Parts Unknown, died today at the age of 61 of an apparent suicide, and the music world is sharing their remembrances and condolences for a man who was loved, respected and admired by many musicians.

The Roots and Tonight Show drummer Amir Questlove Thompson shared one of the most heartfelt notes about Bourdain. In a lengthy Instagram post, Thompson (guest on Bourdain’s Parts Unknown in 2015) spoke of his relationship with Bourdain, who was a frequent guest of The Tonight Show, writing, “I feel so thankful for him to introducing me to a world I never knew, the world of food and especially food around the world.” Thompson also wrote about Bourdain’s role in introducing his fans to food, places, cultures and even oppression around the world, and related how he would “infuriate” Bourdain by playing Billy Joel when he walked on stage instead of something with “some umph to it” as Bourdain wanted.

Other musicians who have taken to social media to share their thoughts on the loss of Bourdain include Iggy Pop, another Parts Unknown in 2015 (which included Bourdain expressing a deep love of Pop’s music and persona when he was younger): “I loved the guy, and he was a light of kindness and good vibes in my life”; Nashville’s Third Man Records, who called him “an intellectual, raconteur, kind soul, who was as real as they come” and had a “predisposed need to understand the how and why of everything around him” (Bourdain took Parts Unknown to Nashville in 2016 and visited with artists like Margo Price, The Kills and The Dead Weather); Queens of the Stone Age (frontman Josh Homme appeared on Bourdain’s No Reservations in 2011); Lin-Manuel Miranda; Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos; Stevie Van Zandt; and more.

Philadelphia-based rockers Low Cut Connie have also announced they will dedicate their set at Bonnaroo today to the memory of Bourdain, calling him a “brilliant guy” with an “open heart” and “a voracious appetite for life.”


reposted: @questlovesfood Just saw the news this morning about Anthony Bourdain’s passing. I have so many thoughts about him—memories, emotions, and unanswered questions—that right now it’s sort of a jumble. I feel so thankful for him to introducing me to a world I never knew, the world of food and especially food around the world. It was through Anthony that I learned about the sushi master Jiro Ono was and that recommendation (seeing the Jiro doc & making a pilgrimage to Tokyo by any means necessary) singlehandedly changed the course of my professional and creative life. Anthony also believed, and talked often, about how all forms of creativity were connected: how chefs and drummers and comedians and actors and directors and painters all drew on the same well of thoughts and emotions. That feeling stuck with me. Watching him take trips to faraway lands to get a taste of heaven (and, just as often, to show how life on earth can be hell for people under the thumb of cruel governments or oppressive poverty) was the equivalent of my many trips to obscure record shops continents away. Lastly I’ll miss our endless banter about the merits (or lack therof) of Yacht Rock. Anthony came on Fallon often, and every time he liked to warn me that his walk-on music better have “some umph to it.” He wanted power and attitude. I’d agree with him, and then I’d play another Billy Joel song, which infuriated him. A few years back, to thank him for writing the foreword to my book, I started the ultimate troll project, though I never got to give it to him. We had an “argument” over Herb Alpert’s “Route 101”: I made the case that the song’s good-feeling/good-time vibe couldn’t be denied, and he made the case that he denied it, and the more heated the argument got the more we laughed. I told him imma make him the mother of smooth-pop playlists and then he would see the light. I’m finishing that playlist, and when I do, I’ll name it after him, just so I can imagine that laugh of his.

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