Chapter 6
US Weekly “Star Tracks”
August 23, 2004
Rock-and-roll royalty and Hollywood stars turned out in force on a rainy morning in Boston for the funeral of guitar player Russell D’Angelo of the Griffin Sisters, who died from injuries he sustained after being struck by a car on August 19 in Detroit.
D’Angelo’s grieving bandmates, including his wife, Zoe Griffin, who he married in May, attended the funeral mass at St.
Christopher’s.
“He was the love of my life,”
Zoe Griffin said.
Relic Records president Jerry Nance remembered meeting D’Angelo in 1997, when Relic signed D’Angelo’s first band, Sky King.
“In my forty years in the business, he was one of the most talented people I’ve ever encountered, and one of the kindest.
He had so much more he could have accomplished—so many more songs to write,”
Nance said.
“It’s a tragedy that we’ve lost him.”
Others who came to see D’Angelo laid to rest included musicians Lenny Kravitz, Nancy Wilson of Heart, Melissa Etheridge, and Sheryl Crow and actresses Drew Barrymore and Demi Moore.
A notable no-show was Cassie Griffin, the band’s lead singer.
When asked about Cassie Griffin’s absence, Griffin Sisters manager CJ Carver declined to comment.