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Artist News
Fountains Of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger dies
By Andy Malt | Published on Thursday 2 April 2020
Songwriter Adam Schlesinger has died, aged 52, due to complications relating to COVID-19. Formerly a member of power-pop band Fountains Of Wayne, he also had a very successful career writing music for film, TV and theatre.
On Tuesday, Schlesinger’s attorney Josh Grier said that the musician had been in hospital for a week and was “very sick and heavily sedated”.
His death was confirmed by Dashboard Confessional’s Chris Carrabba, who tweeted: “I am grasping for the right words. My dear friend Adam Schlesinger has passed away from COVID-19 … I knew him best as a mentor, and a friend. We must take this seriously. People are sick and dying. It is hard to stay locked indoors but lives will be saved. Take care of each other”.
Fountains Of Wayne released five albums between 1996 and 2011, but are best known for their 2003 single ‘Stacy’s Mom’. By that point, Schlesinger was already an Oscar-nominated composer, having been in contention for a Best Original Song prize for the title track to 1997 Tom Hanks movie ‘That Thing You Do’.
He composed music for many TV shows, including ‘Sesame Street’, and last year won an Emmy award for his work on US musical sitcom ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’. He also co-wrote stage musical ‘The Bedwetter’ with Sarah Silverman – based on her book of the same name – which was due to open in New York this summer.